"Away!" said Maltravers, in an impatient tone. "I am not at leisure for these mock heroics."
"Ay, but you shall hear me to the end. I have watched your arrival—I have counted the hours in which you remained with her—I have followed you home. If you have human passions, humanity itself must be dried up within you, and the wild beast in his cavern is not more fearful to encounter. Thus, then, I seek and brave you. Be still. Has Florence revealed to you the name of him who belied you, and who betrayed herself to the death?"
"Ha!" said Maltravers, growing very pale, and fixing his eyes on
Cesarini, "you are not the man—my suspicions lighted elsewhere."
"I am the man. Do thy worst."
Scarce were the words uttered, when, with a fierce cry, Maltravers threw himself on the Italian;—he tore him from his footing—he grasped him in his arms as a child—he literally whirled him around and on high; and in that maddening paroxysm, it was, perhaps, but the balance of a feather, in the conflicting elements of revenge and reason, which withheld Maltravers from hurling the criminal from the fearful height on which they stood. The temptation passed—Cesarini leaned safe, unharmed, but half senseless with mingled rage and fear, against the wall.
He was alone—Maltravers had left him—had fled from himself—fled into the chamber—fled for refuge from human passions to the wing of the All-Seeing and All-Present. "Father," he groaned, sinking on his knees, "support me, save me: without Thee I am lost."
Slowly Cesarini recovered himself, and re-entered the apartment. A string in his brain was already loosened, and, sullen and ferocious, he returned again to goad the lion that had spared him. Maltravers had already risen from his brief prayer. With locked and rigid countenance, with arms folded on his breast, he stood confronting the Italian, who advanced towards him with a menacing brow and arm, but halted involuntarily at the sight of that commanding aspect.
"Well, then," said Maltravers at last, with a tone preternaturally calm and low, "you then are the man. Speak on—what arts did you employ?"
"Your own letter. When, many months ago, I wrote to tell you of the hopes it was mine to conceive, and to ask your opinion of her I loved, how did you answer me? With doubts, with depreciation, with covert and polished scorn, of the very woman whom, with a deliberate treachery, you afterwards wrested from my worshipping and adoring love. That letter I garbled. I made the doubts you expressed of my happiness seem doubts of your own. I changed the dates—I made the letter itself appear written, not on your first acquaintance with her, but subsequent to your plighted and accepted vows. Your own handwriting convicted you of mean suspicions and of sordid motives. These were my arts."
"They were most noble. Do you abide by them—or repent?"