he lifted her eyes. "With you, Mr. Davies, I have nothing to do; I am
not answerable to you. Go and help your accomplice," and she pointed to
Elizabeth, "to cry this scandal over the whole world."

"Stop," he said again. "I will speak. I believe that it is true. I
believe that you are Geoffrey Bingham's mistress, curse him! but I do
not care. I am still willing to marry you."

Elizabeth gasped. Was this to be the end of her scheming? Would the
blind passion of this madman prevail over her revelations, and Beatrice
still become his rich and honoured wife, while she was left poor and
disgraced? Oh, it was monstrous! Oh, she had never dreamed of this!

"Noble, noble!" murmured Mr. Granger; "noble! God bless you!"

So the position was not altogether beyond recovery. His erring daughter
might still be splendidly married; he might still look forward to peace
and wealth in his old age.

Only Beatrice smiled faintly.

"I thank you," she said. "I am much honoured, but I could never have
married you because I do not love you. You must understand me very
little if you think that I should be the more ready to do so on account
of the danger in which I stand," and she ceased.

"Listen, Beatrice," Owen went on, an evil light shining on his heavy
face, while Elizabeth sat astounded, scarcely able to believe her ears.
"I want you, and I mean to marry you; you are more to me than all the
world. I can give you everything, and you had better yield to me, and
you shall hear no more of this. But if you won't, then this is what I
will do. I will be revenged upon you--terribly revenged."

Beatrice shook her head and smiled again, as though to bid him do his
worst.

"And look, Beatrice," he went on, waxing almost eloquent in his jealous
despair, "I have another argument to urge on you. I will not only be
revenged on you, I will be revenged upon your lover--on this Geoffrey
Bingham."

"_Oh!_" said Beatrice sharply, like one in pain. He had found the way
to move her now, and with the cunning of semi-madness he drove the point
home.

"Yes, you may start--I will. I tell you that I will never rest till I
have ruined him, and I am rich and can do it. I have a hundred thousand
pounds, that I will spend on doing it. I have nothing to fear, except
an action for libel. Oh, I am not a fool, though you think I am, I know.
Well, I can pay for a dozen actions. There are papers in London that
will be glad to publish all this--yes, the whole story