A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"I will never know yours," she replied.

He laughed contemptuously.

"It is no use, Dora," he said; "you must really excuse me; I cannot help enjoying my triumph; I would not laugh if I could help it, but, my dear Dora, I cannot help it. Did you ever see a fly in a spider's web? Did you ever watch it struggle and fight and strive to escape, while the spider, one could fancy, was shaking his filmy sides with laughter? Have you ever seen that terrible phenomenon in natural history? You, my poor Dora, are the helpless little fly, I am the spider. It is not an elegant comparison, but it is perfectly true; you are in my power completely, thoroughly, and nothing can take you from me."

She looked at him quite calmly, her courage was rising, now that the first deadly shock had passed away.

"Perhaps," she said, "you will tell me what you want. Spare me any further conversation with you; it does not interest me. Tell me, briefly as you can, what you want."

"What do I want?" he repeated.

"Yes, just that – neither more nor less – what do you want? I own you have me in your power, I own that you hold a secret of mine. What is to be its price? I cannot buy your silence with money. You are a gentleman, a man of honor, having my fair name in your power – what shall you charge me for keeping it? I am anxious to know the price men exact for such secrets as those. You wooed me and won me, after your own honorable fashion – what are you going to exact now as the price of your love and my mad folly? I was vain, foolish, untruthful, but, after all, I was an innocent girl when you knew me first. What shall be the price of my innocence? Oh, noble descendant of noble men – oh, noble heritor of a noble race. Speak – let me hear!"

Her taunts stung him almost to fury; his face grew livid with rage; yet, the more insolent she, the more deeply he loved her; the more scornful she, the deeper and wilder grew his worship of her.

"I will tell you the price," he said; "I will make you my wife. Consent to marry me, and I will swear to you, by heaven itself, that I will keep your secret faithfully, loyally, until I die."

"I cannot marry you," she replied; "I do not love you. I cannot help it, if you are angry. I do not even like you. I should be most wretched and miserable with you, for I loathe you. I will never be your wife."

"All those," he replied, slowly, "are objections that you must try to overcome."

"What if I tell you I love some one else?" she said.

"I should pity him, really pity him, from the depths of my heart; but, all the same, I should say you must be my wife!"

She longed to tell him that she loved and meant to marry Earle, but she was afraid even to mention his name.

"I shall conquer all your objections in time," he said. "It is nothing to me that you say you dislike me; it is even less that you say you like another."

But he never even thought that she really liked Earle. Had she not run away from him?

CHAPTER LXXI

THE COWARD'S THREAT

"That is the first part of your declaration," said Lady Doris, with the calm of infinite contempt; "if I will promise to be your wife, you will promise to marry me. What if I refuse?"

"You are placing a very painful alternative before me," he replied.

"Never mind the pain, my lord; we will waive that. I wish to know the alternative."

"If you will marry me I will keep your secret, Lady Doris Studleigh, faithfully, until death."

"Then I clearly, distinctly, and firmly refuse to marry you. What then?"

"In that case I shall be compelled to take the most disagreeable measures – I shall be compelled to hold your secret as a threat over you, if you refuse to be my wife. I tell you, quite honestly, that I will make you the laughing-stock of all London. You – fair, beautiful, imperial – you shall be an object of scorn; men shall laugh at you, women turn aside as you pass by. Even the most careless and reckless shall refuse to receive you – shall consider you out of the pale. I will tell the whole world, if you compel me to do it, what you were to me in Florence; I will tell the handsome earl, your father, whose roof in that case will no longer shelter you. I will tell your proud, high-bred step-mother – the haughty duchess who presented you at court – nay, even the queen herself, she who values a woman's good name far above all worldly rank."

"You would do all that?" she said.

"Yes, just as soon as I would look at you."

"And you call that honor?"

"No; it is, on the contrary, most dishonorable. Do not imagine that I seek to deceive myself. It would be about the most dishonorable thing any person could do; in fact, nothing could be more base; I grant that. But, if you drive a man mad with love, what can he do? You compel me to take the step, or I would not take it."

She could not grow paler; her face was already ghastly white; but from her eyes there shot one glance that might, from its anger and its fire, have struck him blind.

"You would not spare me," she said, "because it was you yourself who led me to ruin."

"I love you so madly," he said, "that I cannot spare you at all."

"Have you thought," she asked, "what, if you do this deed, the world will say of you and to you? Have you weighed this well?"

"I am indifferent," he said; "I care for nothing on earth but winning you."

"Do you realize that in destroying me you destroy yourself; that you will make yourself more hated and despised than any man ever was before? Do you not see that?"

"I repeat that nothing interests me save winning you, Dora; I am quite willing to be destroyed with you."

"What will the world say to a man who deliberately destroys and ruins a girl as you did me?"

"My dearest Dora, the world hears such stories every day and, I am afraid, rather admires the heroes of them."

"What does it say, then, of cowardly men who, having won such a victory, boast of it?"

"I own that the world looks askance on such a man, and very properly too. It is a base, cowardly thing to do. What other course is left me? You drive me to it: I have no wish to play such a contemptible part; I have no wish to boast of a victory – I shall hate myself for doing it; but what else is there for it? Listen, once and for all. Dora – I cannot help calling you by the old familiar name – I will have you for my wife: I will marry you; nothing, I swear, except death, shall take you from me. I will make you happy, I will see that every desire of your heart is fulfilled; but I swear you shall be my wife. There is no escape – no alternative; either that or disgrace, degradation, and ruin. Do not think I shall hesitate from any fear of ruin to myself; I would ruin myself to-morrow to win you. You might as well try to stem the force of a tide as to alter my determination."

She saw that she was conquered; mortifying, humiliating as it was, she was conquered – there was no help for her.

She stood quite still for one moment; then she said slowly:

"Will you give me time?"

His face flushed hotly; his triumph was coming. A smile played round his lips and brightened his eyes.

"Time? Yes; you can have as much time as you like. You see the solution plainly, do you not? Marry me, and keep your fair name, your high position; defy me, and lose it all. You see it plainly?"

"Yes, there is no mistake about it – you have made it most perfectly plain," she said, in a low, passionless voice. "I quite understand you. Give me time to think it over – I cannot decide it hurriedly."

"What time do you require?" he asked. "I shall not be willing to wait very long."

"It is June now," she continued; "you cannot complain if I say give me until the end of August."

"It shall be so, Dora. Will you give me your hand upon it?"

"No," she replied, "I will not give you my hand. Come at the end of August, and I will give you your answer."

"I shall not be deprived of the happiness of seeing you until then, Dora?"