“You want money in return for your silence?”
“Exactly, my dear girl. I am very sorry, but I have been a trifle unfortunate in my speculations of late. I’m a financier now.”
She looked him straight in the face, her resolution rising. She hated that man whose hands were stained with the blood of Richard Harborne, who had been such a platonic friend to her.
“I wish you to understand, now and at once,” she said, “that you will have nothing from me.”
He smiled at her.
“Ah! I think you are just a little too hasty, my dear Jean,” was his reply. “Remember you are my wife, and that fact you desire to keep a secret. Well, the secret is worth something, surely—even for the sake of your charming little girl.”
“Yes,” she said angrily. “You taunt me with my position—why? Because you want money—you, a thief and an assassin! No; you will have none. I will go to the police and have you arrested.”
“Do, my dear girl. I wish you would do so, because then your true position as my wife will at once be plain. I shall not be Silas P. Hoggan, homeless and penniless, but Ralph Ansell, husband of the wealthy Countess of Bracondale. Say—what a sensation it would cause in the halfpenny papers, wouldn’t it?”
Jean shuddered, and shrank back.
“And you would be arrested for the murder of Richard Harborne—you, the hired assassin of the Baron,” she retorted. “Oh, yes, all is known, I assure you. Not a year ago I found the report among Lord Bracondale’s papers, and read it—every word.”