"Her shawl?" he muttered, still staring at her wide-eyed and bewildered, and wondering if this might not be some trap the vindictive recluse was setting for him.
"Oh, I see," Ann laughed—"you think the poor, frail thing is still up there locked in that room; but she ain't. I saw her coming this way to-night, and, happening to know what you wanted her for, I come after her. You was busy with them galoots in the parlor, and I didn't care to bother you, so I went up and fetched her down without waiting to send in a card. She's in her bed by this time, poor little thing! And I come back for the shawl. I wasn't afraid of you, even without this gun that I found in your room. Thank God, the girl's as pure as she was the day she drew milk from her mother's breast, and I'll see to it that you won't never bother her again. This night you have sunk lower than man ever sunk—even them in your own family. You tried everything hell could invent, and when you failed you went to heaven for your bribes. You knew how she loved her wretched old hag of a mammy and what she wanted the money for. Some sensible folks argue that there isn't no such place as a hell. I tell you, Langdon Chester, there is one, and it's full to running over—packed to the brink—with your sort. For your own low and selfish gratification you'd consign that beautiful flower of a girl to a long life of misery. You dirty scamp, I'm a good mind to—Look here, get me that shawl! You'll make me mad in a minute." She suddenly advanced towards him, the revolver raised half threateningly, and he shrank back in alarm.
"Don't, don't point that thing at me!" he cried. "I don't want trouble with you."
"Well, you get that shawl then, and be quick about it."
He put a foot on the lower step of the stairs. "It's up at the door of the room," he said, doggedly. "I dropped it there just for a joke. I was only teasing her. I—I know she's a good girl. She—she knew I was going to give it back to her. I was afraid she'd get frightened and run down before those men, and—"
"And your hellish cake would be dough!" Ann sneered. "Oh, I see, but that isn't getting the shawl."
He took another slow step, his eyes upon her face, and paused.
"You are trying to make it out worse than it is," he said, at the end of his resources. "I promised to give her the money, which I had locked in the desk in the library for safe-keeping, and asked her to come get it. She and I were on the steps when those men drove up. I begged her to run up-stairs to that room. I—I locked the door to—to keep them out more than for—for any other reason."
"Oh yes, I know you did, Langdon Chester, and you took her shawl for the same reason and made the poor, helpless, scared thing agree to wait for you. A good scamp pleases me powerful, but you are too good a sample for any use. Get the shawl."
"I don't want to be misunderstood," Chester said, in an all but conciliatory tone, as he took a slow, upward step.