‘And this miscreant has tracked you?’ said the colonel at length.
‘He was with me but just now. He may return at any moment.’
‘Such vermin as he have seldom more than one thought, one want—Money. I am rich, and if’——
Mora shook her head. ‘He wants more than money.’
‘Ha!’
‘You do not know Hector Laroche. As I said before, he is a tiger in human form. He loves gold; but he loves still better to have under his claws a writhing, helpless, palpitating victim, whom he can torture and play with and toss to and fro at his pleasure, over whose agonies he can gloat, and whose heart he can slowly vivisect and smile while he does it.’
‘And he would make such a victim of you?’
‘He has done it once, and he would do it again. He is now passing under a false name. What he demands is, that instead of claiming me as the wife whom he married several years ago, I shall go through a second form of marriage with him under the name he is now known by, and that by such means the dark story of his former life shall be buried for ever.’
‘There is no law, human or divine, that can compel you to accede to so monstrous a demand,’ exclaimed the colonel in tones resonant with indignation.
‘As I said before—you do not know the man. Should I refuse to accede to his wishes, he threatens to go to Sir William Ridsdale—for with his usual diabolical ingenuity, he has found out all about Clarice’s engagement—and say to him: “Are you aware that your son is about to marry a person whose sister is the wife of a déporté—of a man who has undergone a term of penal servitude?” And, O Colonel Woodruffe! if he does that—if he does that, what will become of my poor Clarice!’