GILBERT WARRINGTON’S PLOT.
Gilbert Warrington!
For a moment Violet’s heart stood still, then began to beat eighteen
to the dozen. She pressed her cold, shaking hand upon it, as though
with a hope of quieting its tumult; then, pale and outwardly calm, she
turned and faced her unwelcome visitor. His sallow face was full of
ill-concealed triumph; his thin lips wore a mocking smile. He stepped
forward and extended his hand, but Violet drew back with a shudder.
“Ah, my dear Miss Arleigh!”--his voice had an unpleasant ring to
it--“so you refuse to take my hand? Well, all right. That is just as
you see fit. My word for it, you will be glad to accept any overtures
of friendliness that I may see fit to make you before many days have
passed.”
Violet’s eyes flashed. It was with difficulty that she restrained her
anger; but she confronted him in outward quiet.
“What is your business with me?” she inquired, in a low, scornful tone.
“Be good enough to state it, and then leave me. I wish to be alone.”
He smiled, and his keen eyes shone with a dangerous glitter.
“Ah, you do?” he sneered. “Well, you shall be alone in good time, but
at present I have something to say to you, and you must listen to me.”
“Must I?”
Violet’s temper began to gain the ascendency. What right had this man
to come to her in her own home and command her to listen to _him_?
“You are inclined to be impudent, Mr. Warrington,” she added, sharply.
“Not at all.” He drew a little nearer. “See here, Violet, why can’t you
and I be friends? I prefer it so, and really you will find it much more
pleasant since we are compelled to come in contact with each other.”
“I do not understand you. Why am I compelled to associate with _you_?”
To save her life, Violet could not repress the contempt in her voice as
she spoke the personal pronoun. Gilbert Warrington’s face flushed for a
moment.
“You do not understand me. I have not yet explained to you,” he
returned. “Miss Violet Arleigh, you are aware that for years I have
transacted business with your mother--the late Mrs. Rosamond Arleigh?
You, of course, knew nothing of the nature of that business, as it was
of a wholly private nature; in short, a secret, a bad, black secret
between Mrs. Arleigh and myself.”
“If so”--Violet’s voice was cold and scornful--“it was not _her_
secret. She was never guilty of wrong-doing.”
“Ah, well! possibly not. But have you never heard, my dear young
friend, of a person being so hedged in by circumstances that they
have been forced to suffer for the mistake or wrong-doing of another?
Suppose now--just let us suppose the case--that your father, the
late Harold Arleigh, had been guilty of a sin or crime, and that its
consequences had recoiled upon the head of your innocent mother, would
not she be compelled to suffer from his wrong-doing, yet be herself
perfectly guiltless?”
“You are speaking in riddles,” returned Violet, coldly. “I do not
understand you, sir. Be good enough to explain. I am certain that
Harold Arleigh, my father, was not a criminal. He would never have
committed a crime, and then allow my poor mother to suffer the
consequences--to be driven to her death, and hounded down to her grave
by a man like you!”
An angry scowl disfigured the sallow face of Warrington. He clinched
his hands involuntarily, as though he longed to strike the girl down at
his feet.
Violet drew back and faced him with flashing, indignant eyes.
“Now, sir”--in a low, level voice--“I demand that you make a full
explanation. I wish to know exactly what you mean. I am tired of your
hints and insinuations. I _will_ know what sin my father committed and
left the shame and suffering for my mother to bear. Thank Heaven, she
has escaped its burden--and _you_!”
“Have a care, Miss Violet Arleigh!” he hissed, vengefully. “I advise
you to be careful, and weigh well what you are saying. You may get into
serious trouble. I am not the sort of man to stand idly by and allow a
woman to insinuate all sorts of crimes against my good name.”
“Your good name!”
Violet said no more, but the silence which followed was significant.
“No, Gilbert Warrington,” the girl’s cold voice broke in upon the pause
which followed, “you are not that sort of man! You are capable of
waging war against weakness, of leading a crusade against friendless
and unprotected women and children. There is no bravery or real courage
about you. From the crown of your head to the soles of your feet you
are an unmitigated coward!”
“By Heaven!”
He sprung to her side and laid his hand heavily upon her arm. But she
shook off his grasp and faced him bravely, her small head uplifted in
conscious pride, her beautiful dark eyes shining like stars.
“Dare to touch me again!” she panted, breathlessly. “Dare to lay your
hand upon me, Gilbert Warrington, and I will have you punished as you
deserve.”
“Who will make the attempt? Who will venture to make such an attempt,
pray?” he sneered. “Your fine gentleman lover, Leonard Yorke? Mr.
Leonard Yorke, of Yorke Towers, who makes fierce love to you one hour,
and in the next is pouring forth his very heart at the dainty feet of
your pretty cousin, Hilda Rutledge? Why, it is common talk throughout
the neighborhood that Leonard Yorke is playing fast and loose with you,
and really does not know which is the most charming, you or Hilda. They
hint, however, that while he is dead in love with Miss Rutledge, who
is poor, he still keeps his hold upon you, the supposed heiress to the
Arleigh fortune.”
She caught the tone of ill-concealed derision in his voice, and her
heart sunk low in her breast with a sharp pang.
“The ‘supposed heiress’?” she repeated, eagerly. “Will you kindly
explain your object in using the term ‘supposed,’ Mr. Warrington?”
His eyes glittered with a fiendish light.
“Oh, so you have come down to business at last?” he sneered. “To be
sure, I will explain with pleasure. My dear Miss Arleigh, you must
know that I hold in my possession a secret--a family secret of the
Arleighs--which, if it were made public, would ruin you forever in the
eyes of society and the world in general. Once known by the world of
society, and it will blight and destroy your happiness; it will make
you a very outcast, a pariah among men. Leonard Yorke will turn coldly
from you, and his love will die.”
“If his love is worth no more than that,” intervened Violet, hotly,
“it will be better for it to die. But I thought you said that he loved
Hilda?”
Gilbert Warrington bit his lip. In his eagerness to wound and pique
Violet, he had forgotten his own words of a few moments previous.
He smiled coldly.
“Well, I do not care; he will drop you as he would a scorpion, when he
learns the truth concerning you, and the disgraceful secret for which
Harold Arleigh is responsible.”
Violet made no reply; she stood like one stunned, as gradually the
truth, the bitter truth, crept into her heart. She was in the power
of this villain. How, in Heaven’s name, could she escape? There must
be some way of escape, some road out of the dilemma, but she knew not
which way to turn. Gilbert Warrington seemed to read her very thoughts.
“Every man has his price, I have been told,” he observed,
sententiously. “_I_ have mine. Are you willing to pay a price for
keeping your unpleasant secret, Miss Arleigh? Tell me, are you?”
She caught her breath with a suppressed cry.
“What is your price?” she asked, coldly.
Yet no hint of what was coming had as yet intruded upon her heart. She
believed that he would ask a share of the Arleigh fortune, perhaps.
Well, better that than to be haunted by this bad secret, this ghost of
the past; and to escape from the clutches of this man Warrington she
would sacrifice all that she possessed in the world.
He smiled.
“My price? Oh, yes! Well, Miss Violet Arleigh, it is this.” His
eyes transfixed hers with their steady gaze, and his thin lips set
themselves into a straight, narrow line. “I know all about this secret,
the Arleigh secret,” he went on, slowly. “I am the only person living,
now that your mother is gone, who does know it. It is a secret which
would ruin you forever if it became known, or even suspected. But I
will promise, will swear, will bind myself in any way you like, to keep
it a dead secret forever, upon one condition. It is this, that you
consent to be my wife. Once my wife, our interests will be identical,
and I will shield you from all the world, from all harm. I will hide
this secret, and no one will ever suspect its existence. I will place
in your hands the _proof_, so that you may destroy it. You shall live a
life of ease and luxury. Only consent to be my wife. Will you, Violet?”
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