CHAPTER XXVI.
FACE TO FACE.
“Do not weep, dear love!”
Cyril Fayne took Lenore in his arms and kissed the quivering red lips.
“Do not grieve so, my darling. That man is a fiend incarnate, but we will unmask him to the world. We will rise superior to him and his petty nature--his engrossing hatred. He is mean and despicable, and the world shall know the truth and see him as he is. He has kept back the letter that I wrote him; concealed it from the knowledge of the world; held his peace as to my explanation, and then boldly denounced you and me to the public at large. A man like that would commit any crime. But I shall punish him! As sure as I live, I shall punish him! When can you be ready to return to America, Lenore?”
“Within the hour!” she answered, her eyes flashing, her voice ringing forth sweet and clear--“at a moment’s notice! To vindicate my honor, to make my traducers bow before me in humiliation, to be set right in the eyes of the world of society--that fashionable, hypocritical society which has eaten my bread and enjoyed my hospitality times innumerable--I will go back at any time, Cyril--_now!_”
She was pale with excitement, her large dark eyes shining like stars, her bosom heaving with indignation, like a beautiful, outraged queen, as she stood in the center of the great sunlit room in an old Italian palace, her white silk robe trailing behind her over the marble floor. Cyril Fayne felt his heart thrill madly at sight of her glorious beauty, this woman for whose sake he had suffered so much and so long, this woman who, in turn, had borne so heavy a burden for his sake, and for his love counted the world well lost. And he gnashed his teeth in mad despair at thought of the mistake that he had made in leaving the letter of explanation behind for Van Van Alstyne’s private perusal.
“I should have gone to him--openly and frankly--like a man,” he said to himself, “and told him the whole truth, and claimed my wife openly before the whole world! But Lenore, poor child! was so weak and worn with the burden that she was bearing, so nervous and fanciful, so broken down in spirit, that I could not bear the thought of exposing her to his brutal rage. And so I did what I believed to be the best. But I have acted the part of a coward in the eyes of the world, and now I must suffer. In my blind haste and mad love for my darling, I paused not to consider after consequences; I did not stop to count the cost to her, dear love, who has suffered so for me. I should have remembered the nature of the madman with whom I had to deal! I have been to blame for my headlong precipitancy. But I had lived so long without her, had suffered so intensely, had missed her so, that when I saw her before me once more, and knew that my long years of searching for her were over at last, and that she loved me still, had always loved me, that we had been separated and kept apart by base treachery, then I struck the blow which broke her bonds and gave her back to me. Ah, Geoffrey Grey! Geoffrey Grey! false friend, wicked, vile traitor! the day will surely come--oh, yes, I shall live to see it!--when we will stand face to face, and then--”
He was pacing to and fro, his face white and drawn, his hands locked convulsively together, upon his features the impress of mad despair. Up and down the vast apartment he paced in stern silence.
All at once his eyes fell upon the figure of a man passing slowly down the sunlit street between the long rows of ilex-trees. A handsome, effeminate face, with a womanish mouth half hidden by the silky beard and mustache of pale gold. A weak, uncertain, vacillating face, with large, limpid blue eyes and straight, delicate features. A man for women to rave over, jest with, and _forget_! He was sauntering idly along in the golden, glittering sunlight, attired in a faultless gray suit, with a red rose in his button-hole, swinging a tiny cane lazily in one hand as he walked.
A swift glance, then an awful change passed over Cyril Fayne’s face. With a hoarse cry, like the cry of a wild beast suddenly brought face to face with its prey, he dashed open the great plate-glass window, and springing through it, was upon the broken stones of the pavement in an instant.
With one mad bound he sprung upon the dainty, smiling vision and caught him.
“Geoffrey Grey!” he hissed between his close-clinched teeth, “I have you at last! For years I have hunted you down, but always and ever in vain; you would manage to elude me always. I followed you from place to place, but when I came you would fly, and thus escape me. But justice shall be done, vengeance shall have its own at last. You are in my power, Geoffrey Grey, and the same world can contain us both no longer! Villain, coward, traitor, false friend and traducer of womankind, your hour has come!”
For just a moment the graceful figure stood transfixed with horror and overcome with surprise, like one suddenly petrified. The smile had died upon his lip, his face had blanched to an ashen pallor, he was trembling in every limb. Still the white-faced Nemesis stood over him. The coward winced.
“Don’t,” pleaded the low, musical voice, and the gray-clad figure recoiled from the stern, threatening gaze of the other. “Do not--hurt me--Cyril! I--I never did all that of which you accuse me. I--I swear that I am sorry for what I have done!”
A thought flashed like an inspiration across his brain. Slowly his grasp relaxed the miscreant, and his voice, stern and cold, asked the question:
“Suppose that I agree to spare you, Geoffrey Grey--suppose that I should let you go free, what are you willing to do to show your penitence? But, bah! I am a fool to trust you, you false fiend! Stay! if I guard you well, if I remain constantly at your side so that you can not escape me, strive as you may, if I take you back thus guarded to America, will you bear witness to Lenore Fayne’s innocence? Will you take back the wrong that you have done, the evil that you have wrought, and clear her fair name before the world? Speak, villain! And if you agree to my proposition--remember that you can never escape me. I will guard you always like a jailer! I will never let you out of my sight, night nor day, until we have landed in America, and you have made public all this vile plot against a pure woman’s happiness.
“Answer me, Geoffrey Grey! Will you try to retrieve your miserable past by this one act of justice? Will you endeavor to atone in this manner for the unpardonable wrong that you have done Lenore Fayne and myself, the husband from whom your villainous treachery separated her for seventeen long, bad, black years?”
Dead silence. The leaves of the ilex-trees swayed slowly in a passing breeze; no sound broke the dead calm. A bright-eyed _donizella_ tripped past; a group of ugly _lazaroni_ gathered upon the opposite side of the street, begging alms in guttural Italian. Cyril Fayne stood like a statue glaring down into the shrinking face of his enemy run down at last.
“Well?” he demanded, at length, “is it yes or no?”
“Yes!” responded Geoffrey Grey, sullenly.