That was all Messrs. Johnson and Wilson ever heard, for Mr. Walraven opened the library door and waved her in, followed, and shut the door again with a sounding slam.

“Now, then,” he demanded, imperiously, “what do you want?  I thought you were dead and—­”

“Don’t say that other word, Mr. Walraven; it is too forcible.  You only hoped it.  I am not dead.  It’s a great deal worse with me than that.”

“What do you want?” Mr. Walraven repeated, steadily, though his swarth face was dusky gray with rage or fear, or both.  “What do you come here for to-night?  Has the master you serve helped you bodily, that you follow and find me even here?  Are you not afraid I will throttle you for your pains?”

“Not the least.”

She said it with a composure the best bred of his mother’s guests could not have surpassed, standing bolt upright before him, her dusky eyes of fire burning on his face.

“I am not afraid of you, Mr. Walraven (that’s your name, isn’t it?—­and a very fine-sounding name it is), but you’re afraid of me—­afraid to the core of your bitter, black heart.  You stand there dressed like a king, and I stand here in rags your kitchen scullions would scorn; but for all that, Carl Walraven—­for all that, you’re my slave, and you know it!”

Her eyes blazed, her hands clinched, her gaunt form seemed to tower and grow tall with the sense of her triumph and her power.

“Have you anything else to say?” inquired Mr. Walraven, sullenly, “before I call my servants and have you turned out?”

“You dare not,” retorted the woman, fiercely—­“you dare not, coward! boaster! and you know it!  I have a great deal more to say, and I will say it, and you will hear me before we part to-night.  I know my power, Mr. Carl Walraven, and I mean to use it.  Do you think I need wear these rags?  Do you think I need tramp the black, bad streets, night after night, a homeless, houseless wretch?  No; not if I chose, not if I ordered—­do you hear?—­ordered my aristocratic friend, Mr. Walraven, of Fifth Avenue, to empty his plethoric purse in my dirty pocket.  Ah, yes,” with a shrill laugh, “Miriam knows her power!”

“Are you almost done?” Mr. Walraven replied, calmly.  “Have you come here for anything but talk?  If so, for what?”

“Not your money—­be sure of that.  I would starve—­I would die the death of a dog in a kennel—­before I would eat a mouthful of bread bought with your gold.  I come for justice!”

“Justice”—­he lifted a pair of sullen, inquiring eyes—­“justice!  To whom?”

“To one whom you have injured beyond reparation—­Mary Dane!”

She hissed the name in a sharp, sibilant whisper, and the man recoiled as if an adder had stung him.

“What do you mean?” he asked, with dry, parched lips.  “Why do you come here to torment me?  Mary Dane is dead.”

“Mary Dane’s daughter lives not twenty miles from where we stand.  Justice to the dead is beyond the power of even the wealthy Carl Walraven.  Justice to the living can yet be rendered, and shall be to the uttermost farthing.”