“By marriage.”
“With whom?”
At that instant the door was flung open suddenly, and there advanced into the room the woman he believed to be far away in Italy—the woman who held his future in her hands, Muriel Mortimer.
“Marriage with me,” she said, answering his question.
“You!” he cried, thoroughly taken aback at her sudden appearance. “What do you mean? Kindly explain all this.”
“It requires no explanation, Mr Chisholm,” she replied, her pale face hard-set and determined. “You are in the gravest peril, and I have come to you prepared to rescue you from the punishment which must otherwise fall upon you. To-night you have been with the woman who loves you—the witch-like woman who has half London at her feet. I know it all. You love her, and intend to marry her. But you will marry me—me!” and she struck her breast with her hand to emphasise her words. “Or,” she added,—“or to-night you will be arrested as a common criminal.”
He looked her straight in the face without flinching. She was dressed plainly, even shabbily, in rusty black, as though, when out of doors, to avoid attention. Her countenance, pallid and drawn, showed how desperate she was. He, for his part, perceived that he had been tricked by her, and the thought lashed him to fury.
“Listen!” he cried indignantly; “I have been enticed here to this place as part of a plot formed to obtain ten thousand pounds by blackmail, or else to drive me into becoming your husband, you well knowing that I should be prepared to pay any sum to be rid of the danger that threatens me. You promise me freedom if I consent to one or the other. The affection you pretended to feel for me was a sham of the worst kind. You and your precious myrmidons want money—only money. But from me you won’t obtain a single halfpenny. Understand that, all three of you!”
“You intend to marry her!” she said between her teeth. “But you shall never do that. She shall know the truth.”
“Tell her. To me, it is quite immaterial, I assure you,” he declared in defiance.