For a moment they regard each other silently, Mr. Noble appearing
handsome and elegant as usual, having removed the disfiguring toggery
that had transformed him into a stooping old woman, and Lady Vera
facing him with her slight form drawn haughtily erect, the scorn of an
outraged queen flashing in her dark and star-like eyes.
"Coward, villain, how dared you perpetrate this high-handed outrage?"
she demands, in a clear, high voice, that trembles with its bitter
anger.
For answer he throws himself abjectly at her feet.
"Vera, my love, my darling, my wife, my passionate love must plead my
excuse. I loved you and I could not live without you. So I brought you
away where I might have some chance to plead my cause with you and win
your heart," he answers, weakly, still kneeling there, and gazing at
her with adoring eyes.
A scornful laugh ripples over the listener's beautiful lips as she
retreats from him to the furthest corner of the room.
"And did you think this craven course could win my heart?" she asks,
with stinging contempt. "Was it a manly, a lovable feat to don the
rags of a poor and feeble old woman, that you might kidnap a weak girl
who hated you? Was it to surrender my heart to the handsome and manly
figure you appeared on that occasion?"
He writhes beneath the keen lash of her superb scorn.
"Edward Rochester masqueraded as an old woman, and yet Jane Eyre loved
and admired him as her hero among men," he answers, sullenly, rising to
his feet.
"There is no parallel between the cases," she answers, icily. "You can
bring no precedent from fiction or history that could make me admire
_you_, either in your own form or any other. I despise you, I have
always despised you, and I warn you that my friends will rescue me out
of your power. I left your lying note behind me with directions that I
must be sought for if I failed to return. Even now they are searching
for me. At any moment I expect them to rescue me."
He pales at first, then laughs easily.
"You were more crafty than I deemed you, but I am not frightened,"
he answers. "Do you know where you are? You are thirty miles from
Fairvale Park, in the midst of a dense wood. You are occupying the only
habitable chamber in a ruined and deserted old mansion, whose owner
is in Egypt. The place has the name of being haunted, and no one ever
ventures into the vicinity. I have hired the woman you saw just now at
an extravagant bribe to remain here to guard and wait on you. I have
sworn to her that you are mad, and she firmly believes me. She will
regard all you say as the aimless ravings of a lunatic. Now do you
believe it likely that you will soon be delivered out of my power?"
She has no answer ready for him now. Despair has stricken her dumb.
"It does not rest with your friends, it does not rest with me to say
when you shall go free," he pursues, coolly. "It is all for you to say,
Lady Vera. I am ready to make a treaty of peace with you at any time."
"How?" she asks, with white lips.
"You are my wife," he answers. "I love you, and if you will consent to
acknowledge my claim upon you, and live with me, I will take you back
to Fairvale Park to-morrow."
"And do you think I would purchase freedom upon such ignominious
terms?" she asks, with a curling lip. "Live with you, coward to your
first wife, traitor to your second? Not for an hour. I would pine to
death in this loathsome prison first, and die thanking Heaven for my
happy release from the arts of a villain."
"You forget that you are here alone, defenseless, utterly in my power,"
he answers, pale with anger and shame. "What is there to prevent me
from forcing you to do my will?"
Crimson for a moment, then pale as death again, Countess Vera lifts her
hand.
"God is here," she answers, solemnly, "God is here, and He will protect
me. I tell you frankly," she goes on with vehement emphasis, "I will
kill you, or I will kill myself before I will yield to your will. Do
not attempt to drive me desperate."
Pale with rage, he thrusts his hand into his breast and withdraws the
missing memorandum-book.
Lady Vera's face lights up at that sight.
"So you _did_ have it," she cries out, quickly. "You are a thief as
well as an abductor of helpless women! Oh, for shame, for shame!"
His face grows black as night.
"As you are in my power, you would do well to moderate your language,"
he answers, in the low tone of bitter rage. "Beware how you transform
my love to hate!"
"I fear neither your love nor your hate," Countess Vera answers,
dauntlessly.
"Perhaps you will pay a heavier ransom for this book than you would
have done simply for your freedom--will you not?"
"Is the same ransom required?" she asks, regarding him steadily.
"Yes."
"I would purchase no earthly boon at so terrible a price," Countess
Vera answers, shuddering.
"Not even title, wealth and power?" he asks, significantly.
"All three I can claim already," she answers, with a gesture of
unconscious pride.
"But if you must lose all without this little talisman?" he inquires,
in the same significant tone, and regarding her intently.
"I can do without the talisman, as you call it," she answers, coldly.
"Before I fell asleep that day, every word of my father's memorandum
was fixed in my memory. I have written to Joel McPherson to come to
England and establish my identity with that of the girl who was buried
alive in Glenwood Cemetery."
For a moment Leslie Noble stares blankly at his beautiful opponent,
dismayed at her calm declaration.
"By Jove! but you are a keen one," he mutters, unable to repress a
glance of angry admiration. "You seem to anticipate everything. I did
not credit you with such a ready brain. And so you have written to Joel
McPherson?"
"Yes," she answers, with a little note of triumph in her voice.
"Yes, and I have written to a friend of mine in Washington to keep the
sexton of Glenwood out of the way by force, or fraud, or bribe; you
will never see him in England until he comes by my will," he answers,
insolently.
Coldly disdainful, she makes him no reply.
"Do you know what will happen to you if you continue to defy me?" he
goes on, angrily. "Raleigh Gilmore is about to begin a suit against
you. His aim is to prove you an impostor. Mrs. Cleveland is aiding
and abetting him in the endeavor. She hates you so bitterly that she
will stop at nothing to drag you down from your high estate. They
will succeed, unless Joel McPherson's evidence can be given against
them. With the old sexton lies the only real knowledge of that night's
mystery, when Vera Campbell was removed from the grave where I myself
saw her laid. You alone can never prove that Earl Fairvale's heiress
rose from that grave again."
He pauses, but her bloodless lips offer no reply.
"Admit my rights as your husband, Vera, and I will fight with you and
by your side for the grand heritage your father left you. I will summon
Joel McPherson to your aid and prove your identity beyond all cavil.
Deny me and I swear I will be terribly revengeful for your obstinacy.
I will join the ranks of your enemies. I will deny that you are my
wife. Your defeat will be certain then. Think of yourself penniless,
friendless, branded all over England as an adventuress and impostor."
The beautiful face is deadly pale, the hands are clenched until the
pink nails cut into the delicate palms. In silent agony she admits to
herself that his threats are not at all idle ones. Sir Harry Clive's
reluctant communications have prepared her for all this.
"Well, what have you to say to all this?" he asks of the silent figure
before him.
"Nothing. I know that of myself I am utterly powerless. I leave my
cause with God," she answers, briefly.
He smothers a curse on his dark mustached lips.
"So you will lose all rather than take me for your husband?" he asks
her, in unfeigned amazement.
She lifts her eyes for a moment, and surveys him with a look of steady
contempt.
"Have you still any doubt on that point?" she inquires, fearlessly and
defiantly. "Let me assure you then that I would rather be a homeless
beggar in the streets of London than submit to your loathsome love!"
The look, the tone, the words, fill him with blind, overmastering rage.
"By Heaven, I will make you repent those words!" he exclaims, springing
toward her and clasping his arm around her slender waist.
But with one piercing cry of terror Countess Vera puts her hand into
her breast and withdraws a tiny, jewel-hilted dagger.
Maddened with fear, she thrusts the keen blade into the arm that holds
her so tightly, and with a scream of pain the villain releases her and
retreats to the door.
"Oh, Mr. Noble, your arm is all bleeding!" exclaims the woman, entering
at that moment with the tea-tray.
"Yes, my wife is in one of her occasional violent fits, and has tried
to murder me," he answers, shortly.
"She has a dagger which you must try to get away from her or she may
hurt you too. Lock her into the room now and come down and dress my
wound for me," he adds, stalking out of the room.