“My dear girl,” he said in a reassuring tone, “providing you are reasonable, and don’t create a scene, my intention is to treat you with the deference due to every lady.”
“Is that your promise?” asked the girl in breathless eagerness.
“It is my promise—but upon one condition,” said the man in a slow voice. And then she detected in his closely set eyes a strange look that she had not hitherto noticed.
She asked him his condition, to which he replied in a few hard concise words, a smile playing upon his lips.
But the instant she heard him she fell wildly at his feet, and taking his hand in her trembling grasp, begged of him to show her mercy.
But the man only laughed—a laugh that was ominous in itself.