‘Yes, I did,’ she replied, defiantly;
’if you push me to extremities, you must take
the consequences.’
‘It will be the worse for you,’ he said,
threateningly, as the carriage drove up.
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she retorted,
shrugging her shoulders, a trick she had learned from
him; ’you have ruined my life, but I’m
not going to let you ruin Madame’s. I’d
sooner see her dead than in your arms.’
‘Remember, I have warned you,’ he said,
gravely, handing her to the carriage. ‘Good
night!’
‘Good night!’ she answered, mockingly;
‘and to-morrow,’ in a low voice, ‘you
will be astonished.’
‘And to-morrow,’ he said to himself, as
the carriage drove off, ’you will be dead.’
THE VISION OF MISS KITTY MARCHURST
Everyone knows the story of Damocles, and how uncomfortable
he felt with the sword suspended by a hair over his
head. No one could enjoy their dinner under such
circumstances, and it is much to be thankful for that
hosts of the present day do not indulge in these practical
jokes. But though history does not repeat itself
exactly regarding the suspended sword, yet there are
cases when a sense of impending misfortune has the
same effect on the spirits. This was the case
of Madame Midas. She was not by any means of
a nervous temperature, yet ever since the disappearance
of her husband she was a prey to a secret dread, which,
reacting on her nerves, rendered her miserable.
Had Mr Villiers only appeared, she would have known
how to deal with him, and done so promptly, but it
was his absence that made her afraid. Was he
dead? If so, why was his body not found; if he
was not dead, why did he not reappear on the scene.
Allowing, for the sake of argument, that he had stolen
the nugget and left the colony in order to enjoy the
fruits of his villainy—well, the nugget
weighed about three hundred ounces—and that
if he disposed of it, as he must have done, it would
give him a sum of money a little over one thousand
pounds. True, his possession of such a large mass
of gold would awake suspicions in the mind of anyone
he went to; but then, there were people who were always
ready to do shady things, provided they were well
paid. So whomsoever he went to would levy blackmail
on him on threat of informing the police and having
him arrested. Therefore, the most feasible thing
would be that he had got about half of the value of
the nugget, which would be about six hundred pounds.
Say that he did so, a whole year had elapsed, and
Madame Midas knew her husband well enough to know that
six hundred pounds would soon slip through his fingers,
so at the present time he must once more be penniless.
If he was, why did he not come back to her and demand
more money now she was rich? Even had he gone
to a distant place, he would always have kept enough
money to pay his way back to Victoria, so that he
could wring money out of her. It was this unpleasant
