“A drunken thief! He stole all my father had and ran away. Can his word carry the same weight as mine to whose interest it would be to prove myself Shackleton’s daughter? No. The only real proof in existence is the marriage certificate. And I have that. And so long as I have that any story you choose to publish I can get up and deny.” He knew she was right. Even with Harney his story would be discredited, unbacked by the one piece of genuine evidence of the first marriage--the certificate which she possessed. Her unexpected recognition of the point staggered him. He had thought to break her resistance by threats which even to him seemed shameful, and only excusable because of the stress he found himself in. Now he saw her as defiantly unconquered as ever. In his rage he pushed her back against the wall, crying at her: “Deny, deny all you like! Whether you deny or not, the thing will have been said. Next Sunday the whole city, the whole state will be reading it--how you’re Shackleton’s daughter and your mother was Dan Moreau’s mistress. But say one word--one little word to me, and not a syllable will be written, not a whisper spoken. On one side there’s happiness and luxury and love, and on the other disgrace and poverty--not your disgrace alone, but your father’s, your mother’s--” With a cry of rage and despair Mariposa tried to tear herself from him. Nature aided her, for at the same moment a savage gust of wind seized the umbrella and wrenched it this way and that. Instinctively he loosened his hold on her to grasp it, and in that one moment she tore herself away from him. He gripped at the flapping wing of her cloak, and caught it. But the strain was too much for the cheap metal clasp, which broke, and Mariposa slipped out of it and flew into the fury of the rain, leaving the cloak in his hand. The roar of many waters and the shouting of the wind obliterated the sound of her flying feet. The darkness, shot through with the blurred faces of lamps or the long rays from an occasional uncurtained pane, in a moment absorbed her black figure. Essex stood motionless, stunned at the suddenness of her escape, the sodden cloak trailing from his hand. Then shaken out of all reason by rage, not knowing what he intended doing, he started in pursuit. She feared this and her burst of bravery was exhausted. As she ran up the steep street having only the darkness to hide her, her heart seemed shriveled with the fear of him. Suddenly she heard the thud of his feet behind her. An agony of fright seized her. The Garcia house was at least two blocks farther on, and she knew he would overtake her before then. A black doorway with a huddle of little trees, formless and dark now, loomed close by, and toward this she darted, crouching down among the small wet trunks of the shrubs and parting their foliage with shaking hands.