“Why, la, sir, you be’s the doctor, ben’t you?”
Danvers made no reply; he had a mean opinion of the courage of one who could act dishonourably; he thought there was some design to cheat his friend out of his revenge; accordingly he ascended the stairs, motioning the woman to precede him.
He came back to the door of the carriage in a few minutes. “Let us go home, Maltravers,” said he, “this man is not in a state to meet you.”
“Ha!” cried Maltravers, frowning darkly, and all his long-smothered indignation rushing like fire through every vein of his body; “would he shrink from the atonement?” He pushed Danvers impatiently aside, leapt from the carriage, and rushed up-stairs.
Danvers followed.
Heated, wrought-up, furious, Ernest Maltravers burst into a small and squalid chamber; from the closed doors of which, through many chinks, had gleamed the light that told him Cesarini was within. And Cesarini’s eyes, blazing with horrible fire, were the first object that met his gaze. Maltravers stood still, as if frozen into stone.
“Ha! ha!” laughed a shrill and shrieking voice, which contrasted dreadly with the accents of the soft Tuscan, in which the wild words were strung—“who comes here with garments dyed in blood? You cannot accuse me—for my blow drew no blood, it went straight to the heart—it tore no flesh by the way; we Italians poison our victims! Where art thou—where art thou, Maltravers? I am ready. Coward, you do not come! Oh, yes, yes, here you are; the pistols—I will not fight so. I am a wild beast. Let us rend each other with our teeth and talons!”
Huddled up like a heap of confused and jointless limbs in the furthest corner of the room, lay the wretch, a raving maniac;—two men keeping their firm gripe on him, which, ever and anon, with the mighty strength of madness, he shook off, to fall back senseless and exhausted; his strained and bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets, the slaver gathering round his lips, his raven hair standing on end, his delicate and symmetrical features distorted into a hideous and Gorgon aspect. It was, indeed, an appalling and sublime spectacle, full of an awful moral, the meeting of the foes! Here stood Maltravers, strong beyond the common strength of men, in health, power, conscious superiority, premeditated vengeance—wise, gifted; all his faculties ripe, developed, at his command;—the complete and all-armed man, prepared for defence and offence against every foe—a man who, once roused in a righteous quarrel, would not have quailed before an army; and there and thus was his dark and fierce purpose dashed from his soul, shivered into atoms at his feet. He felt the nothingness of man and man’s wrath—in the presence of the madman on whose head the thunderbolt of a greater curse than human anger ever breathes had fallen. In his horrible affliction the Criminal triumphed over the Avenger!
“Yes! yes!” shouted Cesarini, again; “they tell me she is dying; but he is by her side;—pluck him thence—he shall not touch her hand—she shall not bless him—she is mine—if I killed her, I have saved her from him—she is mine in death. Let me in, I say,—I will come in,—I will, I will see her, and strangle him at her feet.” With that, by a tremendous effort, he tore himself from the clutch of his holders, and with a sudden and exultant bound sprang across the room, and stood face to face with Maltravers. The proud brave than turned pale, and recoiled a step—“It is he! it is he!” shrieked the maniac, and he leaped like a tiger at the throat of his rival. Maltravers quickly seized his arm, and whirled him round. Cesarini fell heavily on the floor, mute, senseless, and in strong convulsions.
“Mysterious Providence!” murmured Maltravers, “thou hast justly rebuked the mortal for dreaming he might arrogate to himself thy privilege of vengeance. Forgive the sinner, O God, as I do—as thou teachest this stubborn heart to forgive—as she forgave who is now with thee, a blessed saint in heaven!”