Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/258

 What a hole you must be in!"

"By God! I am in a hole!" he said, so fiercely desperate that she drew away from him as if she had seen him lift his hand to strike her. "I'm in such a hole, by God! that you're not going to stand in the light of my only way out. Will you, or will you not, do as I command you?"

"Command me!" She shrank from him to the corner beside the door, her heart sinking, her cheeks cold. "Command me!" she repeated, the words slow and fearful on her numb lips.

"Marry him tonight! I have given my word."

"No!" she answered, a sudden fire fusing the ice of her fear. "Not if he can drag you—all of us—down to worse than ruin!"

"Since you choose to fight, then we'll fight," he returned, cold and unfeeling in his desperation. "Marrying him isn't a matter of living with him. I'll carry out my part of the agreement; I'll give you to him. It's for you to decide afterwards whether you'll live with him or not. His mouth will be shut."

"You contemptible coward!" she assailed him, too furious to give utterance to all that rose in her.

"Charley Thomson will be here in an hour or two, he is on his way. He is a notarial officer, empowered in extraordinary cases to perform the marriage rite. Be ready to come when you're wanted."

Nearing turned after opening the door, closed it again, drew close to where Alma sat overwhelmed by humiliation and shame, yet on fire with a dangerous resentment.