“What! love a man who thrusts me into a coach despite my entreaties, takes me to a church, and with a revolver pressed close to my heart—­beneath my cloak—­forces me to become his wife!  No.  No!  I loathe, abhor you—­open that door and let me go!”

With an unsteady spring he placed himself between her and the door, crying angrily as he ground out a fierce imprecation from between his white teeth.  “Come, now, none of that, my beauty.  You’re my wife all right, no matter how much of a fuss you make over it.  I want to be agreeable, but you persist in raising the devil in me, and though you may not know it, I’ve a deuce of a temper when I’m thoroughly roused to anger—­at least that’s what the folks who know me say.

“Sit right down here now, and let’s talk the matter over—­if you want to go home to the old gent, why I’m sure I have no objection, providing he agrees to take your hubby along with you.  There’ll be a scene of course—­we may expect that—­but when you tell him how you love me, and couldn’t live without me and all that—­and mind, you put it on heavy—­it will end by his saying:  ’Youth is youth, and love goes where it is sent.  I forgive you, my children; come right back to the paternal roof—­consider it yours in fact.’  And when the occasion is ripe, you could suggest that the old gent start your hubby in business.  Your wish would be law; he might demur a trifle at first, but if you stuck well to your point he’d soon cave in and ask what figure I’d take to—­”

“Stop!—­stop right where you are, you mercenary wretch!” cried Faynie in a ringing voice.  “I see it all now—­as clear as day.  You—­you—­have married me because you have believed me my father’s heiress, and—­”

“You couldn’t help but be, my dear,” he hiccoughed.  “An only child—­no one else on earth to come in for his gold—­couldn’t help but be his heiress, you know—­couldn’t disinherit you if he wanted to.  You’ve got the old chap foul enough there, ha, ha, ha!”

“You seem to have suddenly lost sight of the fact that there is some one beside myself—­my stepmother and her daughter Claire.”

He fell back a step and looked at her with dilated eyes—­despite the brandy he had imbibed he still understood thoroughly every word she was saying.

“A stepmother—­and—­another daughter!” he cried, in astonishment—­almost incoherently.

“You seem to forget that you always used to say to me—­that you hoped they were well,” said Faynie with deepening scorn in her clear, young voice.

“Oh—­ah—­yes,” he muttered, “but you see I was not thinking of them—–­only of you,” and deep in his heart he was cursing the hapless cousin—­whom he believed dead by this time—­for not mentioning that the girl had a stepmother and sister.