"Why did you not come to the library? We all missed
you so much at tea!"
"No doubt," he replies sarcastically. "I can well fancy the
disappointment my absence caused; the blank looks and regretful speeches
that marked my defection. Pshaw--let you and me at least be honest to
each other! Did Florence, think you, shed tears because of my
non-coming?"
This mood of his is so strange to her that, in spite of the natural
false smoothness that belongs to her, it renders her dumb.
"Look here," he goes on savagely, "I have seen enough to-day up in that
accursed room above--that haunted chamber--to show me our game is not
yet won."
"Our game--what game?" asks Dora, with a foolish attempt at
misconception.
He laughs aloud--a wild, unpleasant, scornful laugh, that makes her
cheek turn pale. Its mirth, she tells herself, is demoniacal.
"You would get out of it now, would you?" he says. "It is too late, I
tell you. You have gone some way with me, you must go the rest. I want
your help, and you want mine. Will you draw back now, when the prize is
half won, when a little more labor will place it within your grasp?"
"But there must be no violence," she gasps; "no attempt at--"
"What is it you would say?" he interrupts stonily. "Collect yourself;
you surely do not know what you are hinting at. Violence! what do you
mean by that?"
"I hardly know," she returns, trembling.
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