"
"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.
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