You--' but I
can't repeat all she said, it would make you both blush! I let her go
on till she had worn herself out and then I said, 'Well, Miss Barlow,
why all this fuss--why these fireworks! It can't do you any good. We
must come to business sooner or later. If you don't pay me handsomely
I shall tell Miss Roberts as well as Mr. Delmas.'
"'Mr. Delmas won't believe you,' she hissed, 'you've no proofs at
all!'
"'Perhaps not,' I said, 'but I've proofs of this. I know you have two
deformed toes on your left foot, that all your teeth are false, and
that you go to that charlatan, Howard Prince, in Californian Street to
be faked up. I must be brutal--it's no use being anything else to
women of your sort. You've got a certain species of eczema, and you
flatter yourself that no one but you and Prince are aware of it. What
have you got to say now, Miss Barlow?' But Ella Barlow had fainted.
When she came to, which I managed after vigorous application of salts
and water--the effects of the latter on her complexion I leave you to
imagine--I again broached the subject.
"'What is it you propose?' she said feebly.
"'Why this,' I said, 'you hand me over all those diamonds, and your
defects will--as far as I am concerned--always remain a secret.
Refuse, and Miss Roberts and Mr. Delmas shall know all there is to be
known at once.'
"For some minutes she sat with her face buried in her
hands--shivering. Then she looked up at me--and Jerusalem! it was like
looking at an old woman.
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