"Perhaps I should. Why do you intrude upon my privacy, Col. Anglesea? What is it that you want now?" she inquired, with that blending of fear and defiance in her tone and manner which fatally betrayed the weakness of her defenses.
"Friday, I wonder that you should dare to assume such airs toward me--a man who with one word could destroy you!" he answered.
"Knave and coward that you are! Brute and demon as you are! you will not speak that word here!" she muttered, intensely, under her breath, as she fixed her blazing blue eyes upon him.
"There you go with your extravagant compliments again. You always were such a fascinating flatterer, Friday," said the man, coolly taking up one of her spools of silk and unwinding and rewinding it. "But as to that 'one word,' I certainly shall whisper it into Abel Force's ear, and also into the ears of that many-headed, mighty magician known to us all as 'Our Reporter,' when he shall come to me, notebook and lead pencil in hand, to interview me, and hear all the particulars, after the explosion shall be over."
"And do you presume to suppose that you will be suffered to live after that?" demanded the lady.
"Possibly not. In which case somebody else would have to be interviewed; but that would not help your cause. Come, Friday; the only possible salvation for you will be your full agreement to my terms of silence."
"Quite so. I am no halfway weakling, as you know perfectly well--for there are no secrets between us, Friday. You know, and therefore I need not remind you, that I never stop at any means to gain an end. I have an end in view just now. It is the price of my silence."
"I wonder what new felonies you can possibly be meditating now?" bitterly demanded the lady, in spite of her fears.
"Ah! Certainly! Thanks! You are too good to say so! Ah--the--enterprise I have in hand just now is one in which you will promptly and zealously give me all the help you possibly can--such effectual assistance, in point of fact, as shall insure its success."
"'If you do not?' I have already told you the consequences. But you are slow to believe them. You do not really believe me to be so thorough-going as you have been good enough to say that I am. You think that at the last there will be some relenting on my part. Disabuse yourself of that illusion. Friday, listen to me: No condemned criminal standing on the trapdoor of a scaffold ever occupied a more dangerous position than you do now. Refuse to co-operate with me in my purpose, and I give the signal that seals your fate--I spring the trap that lets you drop at once into perdition. That is all, my lady."
