"I don't care; you make me mad. Here have I done you endless little services, helped you to live in the style you do; and the first little favour I ask of you, I am met with a flat refusal." "I don't like to refuse you, but the girl is--" "Well, you know what the girl is. Hang it all, Pont, should I ask you if it were not as I say--unless it were that rich heiress I am to carry off some day." "And the sooner the better." "Yes, yes; but time's going. It's now eleven, and I must strike while the iron's hot." "But, Rockley--" "More opposition? What the devil do you mean?" "I don't like to be mixed up with such an affair." "You will not be mixed up with it. No one will know but our two selves." "My conscience goes against such a trap." "Your conscience!" he hissed angrily. "Well, and do you suppose I have none? The girl is too good. I like her. It is a shame, Rockley." Cora Dean's heart beat as if it would suffocate her, while her mouth felt dry and her hands moist. She could hardly have moved to save her life. She knew what it was, she felt sure. It was a plot against Claire, and if it were-- Cora Dean did not finish her thought, but listened as Rockley spoke again. Volume Two, Chapter XXIV. TOO LATE. "How long has the fair Pontardent taken to the nursing up of scruples?" "Do you suppose a woman is all evil?" was the retort. "You men make us bad enough, but you cannot kill all the good. I say it is a shame." "A shame!" said Rockley derisively. "Ha, ha, ha! What a woman you are! You don't know what has taken place. I tell you this; she is mine. All she wants is the excuse and opportunity that she finds to-night with me. The old man watches her like a hawk." "Is this really so, Rockley?" "On my honour. I should not have done what I have if she were not willing. I've a chaise and four waiting outside the lower gate behind here." "You have?" "It has been there this half hour, and we are only waiting for our opportunity. Now then, will you help me?" "Well," said Mrs Pontardent hesitating, "if it is that--" "It is like that, I tell you; but she wants it to appear that she had no hand in it, to keep up the fiction. You see?" "Yes," said the woman, rather hoarsely; "but I don't like it, Rockley." "Friends or enemies?--one word?" he said sternly. "Friends," she said quickly. "What am I to do?" "Go back at once, and get hold of young Denville. He's half-tipsy somewhere." "Yes." "Tell him he has shamefully neglected his sister, and that he is to take her out in the garden for a walk straight down the broad grass path, and beg her pardon." "But--" "Not a word. Do what I say. The boy will obey you like a sheep dog." "And then?" "What then? That is all." "But, Rockley, no violence." "Bah! Rubbish! Do as I bid you. I shall push the boy into a bush; that's all." There was a dead silence. "Must I do this, Rockley?"