nce it will do so again; but it
will not. I could execute my plans immediately and at once have you
helplessly in my power; but I prefer to give you one more and the last
opportunity of deciding for yourself. Know, then, that as soon as I find
this offer rejected, I will send the contents of this pistol through your
right arm, and if that is not enough I have another in my pocket here,
which shall pay the same respects to your left arm. You will then be at my
mercy as completely as though you were an infant. I leave your own fancy to
picture what will follow, understanding my intentions as you do. With this
certain doom before you, will you, Eveline Mandeville, consent to be my
wife, now or at some future day?"

"I WILL NOT!"

The reply was clear, bold, decided, without a tremor of voice or the
quivering of a muscle. The fiendish wretch was awed by her courage, but
having, as he said, resolved to bring matters to a crisis, he went on:

"You have chosen your fate, be the consequences upon your own head!" He
raised the pistol.

"Will you throw away that dagger and permit me peaceably to approach you?"

"_No!_"

"I will ask you three times, and with your third refusal I shall fire; so
beware! Will you throw away the dagger?"

"_No!_"

"This is the third and last time I shall ask the question," and he repeated
it slowly: "Will you throw away t-h-e d-a-g-g-e-r?" and he brought the
weapon to his eye.

"NO!"

There was a pause of a second, and then a flash of fire, a cloud of smoke,
and the report of a pistol told that his threat was executed. The brutal
monster waited a moment for the smoke to clear away from his vision, not
liking to venture upon that ominous looking dagger until assured of a
bloodless victory. Poor, despicable coward!

As he kept his eye fixed toward the spot where Eveline stood, eager to see
the result of the shot, he felt something strike his breast, and, turning
his eyes downward, he beheld the glittering dagger glance along his left
side! A button had turned its course and saved his life! He sprang away,
uttering an affrighted oath, and grasped for his other pistol. It was not
in his pocket! and there he stood unarmed, before the unhurt but outraged
woman he had attempted to destroy!

Eveline, though excited, was unusually self-possessed during all the
interview just related. She felt the imminence of her danger, but it only
aroused her faculties to a more acute observation of every incid