“I do, most certainly,” he answered with a forced laugh.
“Shall I tell you one thing?”
“Do, by all means.”
“Well, you shall never marry her. To-morrow she will hate the very mention of your name,” she cried wildly.
“My memory, you mean.”
“Why?”
“Because to-morrow I shall be dead, and your chance of plucking the pigeon will have disappeared,” he answered bitterly.
She looked at him with a maddened and fiery glance, as though his defiance had aroused the spirit of murder within her. She saw that his determination to carry out his previous intention of suicide checkmated her. All her ingenious wiles had been conceived and operated in vain.
While he still lived, there was a hope of securing the prize which an hour ago had seemed to be so well within her grasp.
“So you refuse!” she cried in a frenzy of anger. “You intend to escape by self-destruction, miserable coward that you are!”