"I shall make no promises," he said, rudely turning on his heel. "Attend to the girl; she is recovering consciousness. You _dare not_ permit her to escape, no matter what you say to the contrary. I must return to the Gardiner mansion to direct the movements of the boys. They will be waiting for me. Order a fresh horse saddled, and be quick about it. I've already wasted too much time listening to your recriminations." Very reluctantly the woman turned to do his bidding. She saw that she had gone far enough. His mood had changed from a reflective to an angry one, and Victor Lamont was a man to fear when he was in a rage. As soon as the woman had quitted the room, Lamont returned to his contemplation of the beautiful face of the girl lying so white and still on the wooden settee, as revealed to him by the light of the swinging oil lamp directly over her head. The longer Victor Lamont gazed, the more infatuated he became with that pure, sweet face. "You shall love me," he muttered; "I swear it! Victor Lamont has never yet wished for anything that he did not obtain, sooner or later, by fair means or foul; and I wish for your love, fair girl--wish, long, crave for it with all my heart, with all my soul, with all the depth and strength of my nature! I will win you, and we will go far away from the scenes that know me but too well, where a reward is offered for my capture, and where prison doors yawn to receive me. I will marry you, and then I will reform--I will do anything you ask of me; but I must, I _will_ have your love, or I--will--kill--you! I could never bear to see you the bride of another." CHAPTER LV. "Yes, you shall marry me, though Heaven and earth combine to take you from me!" muttered Victor Lamont, gazing down upon the pure, marble-white face of Bernardine. "It is said that some day, sooner or later, every man meets his fate, and when he does meet that one of all others, his whole life changes. The past, with all those whom he has met and fancied before, is as nothing to him now, and his dreams are only of the future and that elysium where he is to wander hand in hand with the one he loves. "Hand in hand--will I ever _dare_ clasp in mine that little white hand that I know must be as pure and spotless as a lily leaf? Would not my own hand, dark and hardened in sin, ay, bathed in blood even, wither away at the contact? "If I had lived a good, honorable, upright life, I might have won the love and the respect of this young girl. If she knew me as I am, as the police know me, she would recoil from me in horror; but _she must never know_--never! I do not think she saw my face--ay, I could swear that she did not. I will tell her that I was a traveler happening to pass and saw her at the mercy of a ruffian, and rescued her.