CHAPTER XIX.
“I LOVE YOU AS MADLY AS YOU HATE ME!”
As Harold Castello looked at Violet and listened to her words, his dusky complexion grew lividly pale, and his eyes dilated with something like horror.
Darting close to her side, he bent close to her ear, whispering, hoarsely:
“Speak lower. What if you should be overheard, girl?”
“You have made me reckless with your persecutions, and I scarcely care,” she breathed, almost defiantly.
He shut his lips tightly over a stifled oath and stood with his arms folded on his breast, regarding her with a baffled air.
Seeing that he did not speak, she looked up and said, angrily:
“Why have you come here to persecute me? You need not have feared me.”
“Because betrayal would have been as bad for you as for me,” he sneered, and Violet answered, dauntlessly:
“Yes, that is the only thing that could have sealed my lips.”
“Darling, how cruel you are! Can no memory of the past soften your heart?”
“Do not speak words of love to me, sir. I loathe, abhor, detest you, and I would die before I would become your wife.”
“Violet, I love you as madly as you hate me, and I have sworn to possess you. Will you not listen to me? I am very rich, and you shall be housed like a queen if you will marry me. See what splendid jewels I have brought you!” and he held out to her a case of diamonds, sparkling on white velvet beds, the most exquisite set that could be imagined.
She pushed the case away so angrily that it fell from his hands to the floor and lay all in a heap of cold white fire upon the rich velvet carpet.
“You despise my offering?” he exclaimed, bitterly, as he stooped to gather his scorned gift from the carpet, and restore them to the case.
“I despise it and you! How often must I reiterate that fact?” cried Violet, angrily.
“As often as you please, fair beauty, but it will make no difference in my determination to win you for my own,” he cried, with a certain defiance, enraged at her scorn.
She made no answer for a few moments, but she thought, with a happy thrill at her heart that in a few more hours she would be safe from his persecutions, the bride of her own beloved Cecil.
Strong in this hope, she said, presently:
“It is useless for you to press your suit with me. I fear and loathe you so deeply that I could never even tolerate your presence. The sooner you realize this the better. But I can assure you that it is not necessary to make me your wife to insure my silence on the past. Rest easy. My lips shall be sealed.”
With these words, she arose to leave the room.
He saw by her flashing eyes and compressed lips that it was quite useless to seek to detain her, and he stood in angry silence while she left the room, thinking:
“How superb she was in her anger! Her eyes glowed like stars, and her little red mouth was so charming in its disdain that I longed to kiss it. By Heaven, I love her more dearly than ever; and, when she is mine, I will tame her if it is in the power of mortal man to do it.”
He laughed aloud at thought of the clever plot that was to give her to his arms.
“How she will rage at first!” he thought, but the prospect did not deter him from his purpose, perhaps only added zest to his desire to have Violet for his own. He liked the difficulty of the whole affair, and would rather have had Violet unwillingly than any other more eager bride.
With heaving bosom and flashing eyes, Violet returned to her own room, thankful that the dreaded interview was over, and hoping that never again on earth need she be called upon to face that man again.
It was but a few hours now to the time for her drive with Amber that was to end in the marriage with Cecil, her heart’s darling, and, locking her door, she proceeded to pack a hand-satchel with such changes as she would need in her little wedding journey to Niagara Falls.
Violet loved Cecil with the unchangeable love of a lifetime, and her dearest wish was to be his wife. Yet her young heart was heavy over this enforced elopement.
She deplored its necessity, and would have preferred to wait for him several years rather than incur the notoriety of an elopement, but Amber had assured her over and over that unless she married Cecil Grant this evening, Judge Camden would find means to force her to wed Harold Castello to-morrow.
Her packing finished, she unlocked the door and sat down at the window, to pass away the intervening time with a book.
But she could not interest herself in its pages, and, laying it down, she took some embroidery from her little work-basket and sewed mechanically, her eyes on the work, her mind far away.
She was restless and unhappy, despite the fact that she would soon be the happy bride of the man she adored, and who adored her in turn.
A weight of trouble, doubt, and strange foreboding lay like lead upon her girlish spirits, and now and then deep sighs heaved her breast, and tears would sparkle out upon her thick, curly lashes.
At length the embroidery dropped unheeded in her lap, and Violet sat turning her engagement ring round and round upon her finger, her blue eyes fixed on the far-away landscape.