Part 29 (1/2)

”Will nothing move you?” he pa.s.sionately cried.

”Nothing.”

”By Heaven! then I will meet you blade to blade!” he cried, furiously, and springing to his feet, his eyes blazing with pa.s.sion. ”If entreaties will not move you--if neither bribes nor promises will cause you to yield--we will try what lawful authority will do. I have no intention of being made the laughing stock of the world, I a.s.sure you; and, hereafter, I command that you conduct yourself in a manner becoming the position which I have given you. In the first place, then, to-morrow morning, you will breakfast in the dining-room with the family--do you hear?”

Edith had stood calmly regarding him during this speech; but, wis.h.i.+ng him to go on, if he had anything further to say, she did not attempt to reply as he paused after the above question.

”Immediately after breakfast,” he resumed, with something less of excitement, and not feeling very comfortable beneath her unwavering glance, ”we shall return to the city, and the following morning you and I will start for St. Augustine, Florida--thence go to California and later to Europe.”

The young girl straightened herself to her full height, and she had never seemed more lovely than at that moment.

”Monsieur Correlli,” she said, in a voice that rang with an irrevocable decision, ”I shall never go to Florida with you, nor yet to California, neither to Europe; I shall never appear anywhere with you in public, neither will I ever break bread with you, at any table.

There, sir, you have my answer to your 'commands.' Now, let me pa.s.s.”

Without waiting to see what effect her remarks might have upon him, she pushed resolutely by him and went swiftly upstairs to her room.

The man gazed after her in undisguised astonishment.

”By St. Michael! the girl has a tremendous spirit in that slight frame of hers. She has always seemed such a sweet little angel, too--no one would have suspected it. However, there are more ways than one to accomplish my purpose, and I flatter myself that I shall yet conquer her.”

With this comforting reflection, he sought his sister, to relate what had occurred, and enlist her crafty talents in planning his next move in the desperate game he was playing.

CHAPTER XX.

EDITH RESOLVES TO MEET HER ENEMIES WITH THEIR OWN WEAPONS.

The morning following her interview with Emil Correlli, when Edith attempted to leave her room to go down to breakfast, she found, to her dismay, that her door had been fastened on the outside.

An angry flush leaped to her brow.

”So they imagine they can make me bend to their will by making a prisoner of me, do they?” she exclaimed, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and scornful lips. ”We shall see!”

But she was powerless just then to help herself, and so was obliged to make the best of her situation for the present.

Presently some one knocked upon her door, and she heard a bolt moved--it having been placed there during the night. Then Mrs. G.o.ddard appeared before her, smiling a gracious good-morning, and bearing a tray, upon which there was a daintily arranged breakfast.

”We thought it best for you to eat here, since you do not feel like coming down to the dining-room,” she kindly remarked, as she set the tray upon the table.

Edith opened her lips to make some scathing retort; but, a bright thought suddenly flas.h.i.+ng through her mind, she checked herself, and replied, appreciatively:

”Thank you, Mrs. G.o.ddard.”

The woman turned a surprised look upon her, for she had expected only tears and reproaches from her because of her imprisonment.

But Edith, without appearing to notice it, sat down and quietly prepared to eat her breakfast.

”Ah! she is beginning to come around,” thought the wily woman.