A COUNTERPLOT.
It is a half hour later. The light in the room is increased by a
sputtering additional candle, and Papa Francoise, sitting by the deal
table, is gazing toward the door, an eager expectant look upon his face.
"If that old woman were here!" he mutters, and then starts forward at
the sound of a low hesitating tap.
Hurrying to the door he unbars it with eager haste, and a smile of
blandest delight overspreads his yellow face as the new-comer enters.
It is a woman, slender and graceful; a _lady_, who holds up her trailing
black garments daintily as she steps across the threshold, repulsing the
proffered hand-clasp with a haughty gesture, and gliding away from him
while she says in a tone of distressful remonstrance:
"Man, _why_ have you sent for me? Don't you know that there is such a
thing as a last straw?"
"A last straw!" His voice is a doleful whine, his manner obsequious to
servility. "Ah, my child, I wanted to see you so much; your poor mother
wanted to see you so much!"
The woman throws back her veil with a gesture of fierce defiance,
disclosing the face of Leslie Warburton pale and woe-stricken, but quite
as lovely as when it shone upon Stanhope, surrounded by the halo of
"Sunlight."
"You hypocrite!" she exclaims scornfully. "Parents do not persecute
their children as you and the woman you call my mother have persecuted
me. You gave me to the Ulimans when I was but an infant,--that I
know,--but the papers signed by you do not speak of me as _your child_.
Besides, does human instinct go for nothing? If you were my father would
I loathe these meetings? Would I shudder at your touch? Would my whole
soul rise in rebellion against your persecutions?"
Her eyes flash upon him and the red blood mounts to her cheeks. In the
excitement of the moment she has forgotten her fear. Her voice rises
clear and ringing; and Papa Francoise, thinking of two possible
listeners concealed not far away, utters a low "sh-h-h-h!"
"Not so loud, my child," he says in an undertone; "not so loud. Ah! you
ungrateful girl, we wanted to see you rich and happy, and this is how
you thank us," affecting profound grief. "These rich people have taught
you to loathe your poor old father!"
He sinks upon the stool as if in utter dejection, wipes away an
imaginary tear, and then resumes, in the same guarded tone:
"My dear child, when we gave you to the Ulimans we were very poor, and
they were very rich,--a great deal richer than when they died, leaving
you only a few thousands."
"Which _you_ have already extorted from me! I have given you every
dollar I possess and yet you live like beggars."
"And we _are_ beggars, my child. Some unfortunate speculations have
swept away all our little gains, and now--"
"And now you want more money,--the old story. Listen: you have called me
to-night from my husband's home, forced me to steal away from my guests
like the veriest criminal, threatening to appear among them if I failed
to come. At this moment you, who call yourself my father, stand there
gloating and triumphant because of the power you hold over me. I knew
you were capable of keeping your word, and rather than have my husband's
home desecrated by such presence as yours, I am here. But I have come
for the last time--"
"No, my child, oh!--"
But she pays no heed to his expostulations.
"I have come _for the last time_!" she says with fierce decision. "I
have come to tell you that from this moment I defy you!"
"Softly, my dear; sh-h-h!"
His face, in spite of his efforts to retain its benign expression, is
growing vindictive and cruel. He comes toward her with slow cat-like
movements.
But she glides backward as he advances, and, putting the table between
herself and him, she hurries on, never heeding that she has, by this
movement, increased the distance from the outer door--and safety.
"You have carried your game too far!" she says. "When you first appeared
before me, so soon after the loss of my adopted parents that it would
seem you were waiting for that event--"
"So we were, my child," he interrupts, "for we had promised not to come
near you during their lifetime."
"You had promised _never_ to approach me, _never_ to claim me, as the
documents I found among my mother's--among Mrs. Uliman's papers prove.
Oh," she cries, wringing her hands and lifting her fair face heavenward;
"oh, my mother! my dear, sweet, gentle mother! Oh, my father! the
truest, the tenderest a wretched orphan ever had on earth! that Death
should take _you_, and Life bring me such creatures to fill your places!
But they cannot, they never shall!"
"Oh, good Lord!" mutters Papa under his breath, "those fools upstairs
will hear too much!"
But Leslie's indignation has swallowed up all thought of caution, and
her words pour out torrent-like.
"Oh, if I had but denounced you at the first!" she cries; "or forced you
to prove your claim! Oh, if you had shown yourselves _then_ in all your
greed and heartlessness! But while I was Leslie Uliman, with only a
moderate fortune, you were content to take what I could give, and not
press what you are pleased to term your _claim_ upon my affections.
Affections! The word is mockery from your lips! In consideration of the
large sums I paid you, you promised never to approach me in the future,
and I, fool that I was, believing myself free from you, married David
Warburton, only to find myself again your victim, to know you at last in
all your baseness."
Papa Francoise, unable to stem the tide of her eloquence, shows signs of
anger, but she never heeds him.
"Since I became the wife of a rich man, you have been my constant
torment and terror. Threatening and wheedling by turns, black-mailing
constantly, you have drained my purse, you have made my life a burden.
And I came here to-night to say, I will have no more of your
persecution! All of _my_ money has been paid into your hands, but not
one dollar of my _husband's_ wealth shall ever come to you from me. I
swear it!"
The old man again moves nearer.
"Ah, ungrateful girl!" he cries, feigning the utmost grief; "ah, unkind
girl!"
And his affectation of sorrow causes two unseen observers to grin with
delight, and brings to Leslie's countenance an expression of intense
disgust.
Moving back as he approaches, she throws up her head with an impatient
gesture, and the veil which has covered it falls to her shoulders,
revealing even by that dim light, the glisten of jewels in her
ears--great, gleaming diamonds, which she, in her haste and agitation,
has forgotten to remove before setting out upon this unsafe errand.
It is a most unfortunate movement, for two pair of eyes are peering down
from directly above her, and two pair of avaricious hands itch to clutch
the shining treasures.
Obeying Papa's instructions, Josef Siebel and the girl Nance, had
mounted the rickety stairway which they reached through a closet-like
ante-room opening from the large one occupied by Papa and Leslie. And
having stationed themselves near the top of the stairs they awaited
there the coming of the lady who, surprised by their presence, was to
proffer them hush-money with a liberal hand; but--
"The best-laid plans of men and mice gang aft agleg."
And Papa Francoise has not anticipated the spirited outbreak with which
Leslie has astonished him. Startled by this, and fearful that; by a
false move, he should entirely lose his power over her, he has made
feeble efforts to stay the flow of her speech and neglected to give the
signal for which the concealed sneak thieves have waited, until it was
too late.
Crouched on the floor near the stairway, the two thieves have heard the
entrance of Leslie, heard the hum of conversation, low and indistinct at
first, until the voice of Leslie, rising high and clear, startled Siebel
into a listening attitude. Touching Nance on the arm, he begins slowly
to drag himself along the floor to where a faint ray of light tells him
there is a place of observation.
The floor is exceedingly dilapidated, and the ceiling below warped and
sieve-like; and, having reached the chink in the floor, Siebel finds
himself able to look directly down upon Leslie as she stands near the
table.
In another moment Nance is beside him, and then the two faces are glued
to the floor, their eyes taking in the scene below, their ears listening
greedily.
At first they listen with simple curiosity; then with astonished
interest; then with intense satisfaction at Papa's evident discomfiture,
for they hate him as the slave ever hates his tyrant.
When the veil falls from Leslie's head, Siebel's quick eye is the first
to catch the shine of the diamonds in her ears. He stifles an
exclamation, looks again, and then grasps the arm of his confederate:
"Nance," he whispers eagerly, "Nance, look--in her ears."
The girl peers down, and fairly gasps.
"Shiners!" she whispers; "ah, they make my eyes water!"
"They make my fingers itch," he returns; "d'ye twig, gal?"
"Eh?"
Drawing her away from the aperture, he says, in a hoarse whisper:
"Gal, I've got a plan that'll lay over old Beelzebub's down there, if we
kin only git the chance ter play it. See here, Nance, are ye willin' to
make a bold stroke fer them shiners?"
"How?"
"By surprisin' 'em. If I'll floor the old man, can't you tackle the
gal?"
Nance takes a moment for consideration; they exchange a few more
whispered words and then begin to creep stealthily toward the stairway.