“You?” he cried incredulously. “How can you hope to rescue me?” he demanded sharply, taking a step toward her in his eagerness to know what the answer to his question would be.
“By means known only to myself,” she said, watching him with panther-like intensity. She had changed her tactics.
“From your words it would appear that my future is to be controlled in most respects by you, Miss Mortimer,” he observed with a slight touch of sarcasm in his hard voice.
“You have spoken correctly. It is.”
“And for what reason, pray?” he inquired, frowning in his perplexity.
“Because I alone know the truth, Mr Chisholm,” she said distinctly. “I am aware of the secret of your sin. All of these hideous facts are in my possession.”
He started violently, glaring at her open-mouthed, as though she were some superhuman monstrosity.
“You believe that I am lying to you, but I declare that I am not. I am in full possession of the secret of your sin, even to its smallest detail. If you wish, I will defend you, and show you a means by which you can defy those who are seeking to expose you. Shall I give you proof that I am cognisant of the truth?”
He nodded in the affirmative, still too dumbfounded to articulate.
Moving suddenly she stepped forward to the table, took up a pen, and wrote two words upon a piece of paper, which she handed to him in silence.