“I have come to settle matters with you, that’s all. What the d——l are you doing here!”
“Don’t speak so cruelly to me—don’t, Belmont!” cried poor Effie, bursting into tears. “O, if you knew the anguish I have endured since you left me; if you knew, that, driven to despair, I even sought to take my own life, you would pity me! If you knew how I have watched for you—sought for you—how I have waited for you, you would at least have compassion on me!”
“You’re a fool!” exclaimed Crayford, brutally. “Why I thought you would have learned better by this time; but since you have not, why you must not be in my way, that’s all. Now listen to me; you must go out of the city—and look you, on condition that you will never come back again, I will give you a thousand dollars; come, that’s generous, now—most men would let you go to the —— before they would do as much for you. The fact is, child, I am going to be married, and to a beautiful, rich lady.”
“Married!” shrieked Effie, starting to her feet, and catching his arm, “married—am I not your wife?”
“Ha! ha! ha!—come, that’s a good one; not exactly, child, you are only my wife, pour passer le temps, as the French say. No, that was all a hoax—you are free, and with a thousand dollars to buy you a husband! Now is not that better?” said Crayford, chucking her under the chin.
Effie did not reply. It needed not—those eyes, more eloquent than words, fastened upon his guilty countenance, told plainly a villain’s work of wo wrought in her young, trusting heart. Crayford, hardened as he was, quailed under their reproach.
At length she spoke, but there was an unnatural calmness in her voice,
“Who is the lady you will marry?” she said.
“Well, I will tell you—and, by the way, you came near ruining my prospects there. She saw you in Chestnut street one day, as we were walking, and you looked so —— queer at me, that, faith, I were put to my trumps, and mumbled over something about your being a crazy fortune-teller—was not that well done?”
“It was well done,” answered Effie, in the same tone; “but her name—tell me her name.”