By all the unwritten laws which governed such affairs of honour, Mortémar could not interfere. He did not know the right or wrong of the original enmity between these two men, but had already guessed that mere disappointment with regard to the voyage of Le Monarque had not been sufficient to kindle such deadly hate: vaguely he surmised that somewhere in the background lurked the rustle of a silk petticoat.
Without the slightest hesitation now Gaston took one of the pistols in his left hand: his right still caused him excruciating pain; and every time he felt the agony, his eyes gleamed with more intense savagery, the lust of a certain revenge.
He had worked himself up into a passion of hate. Money has the power to do that sometimes; that vanished hope of fortune had killed every instinct in the man, save that of desire for vengeance. He was sure of himself. The pistols were his as de Mortémar had said, and he had handled them but a few hours ago: he could apprise their weight—loaded or unloaded—and he was quite satisfied.
It was hatred alone that prompted him to a final thrust, a blow, he thought, to a dying man. Eglinton was as good as dead, with the muzzle of a loaded pistol a foot away from his breast, and an empty weapon in his own hand; but his serenity irritated Gaston; the blood which tingled in his own veins, which had rushed to his head almost obscuring his vision clamoured for a sight of a shrinking enemy, not of a wooden puppet, calm, impassive even before certain death.
The agony as he lifted the half-broken wrist to his coat was intolerable, but he almost welcomed it now, for it added a strange, lustful joy to the excitement of this deed. His eyes, glowing and restless with fumes of wine and passion of hate, were fixed upon the marble-like face of his enemy. Then from the breast-pocket of his coat, he drew a packet of papers.
And although he was nigh giddy with the pain in his wrist, he clutched that packet tightly, toyed with it for a while, smoothed out the creases with a hand which shook with the intensity of his excitement, the intensity of his triumph.
The proofs in Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton's own writing that she was at one with the gang who meant to sell the Stuart prince for gold! The map revealing his hiding-place! and her letter to him bidding him trust the bearer whose orders—now affixed to map and letter—were that he deliver the young Pretender into the hands of the English authorities.
That these orders to Le Monarque had been forestalled by milor Eglinton could not exonerate Madame la Marquise from having been at one with Gaston de Stainville and Madame de Pompadour, and others who might remain nameless, in the blackest treachery ever planned against a trusting friend.
No wonder Gaston de Stainville forgot physical suffering when he toyed lovingly with this packet of papers in his hand, the consummation of his revenge.
At last 'twas done. A subtle, indefinable change had come over the calm face of Lord Eglinton, an ashen grey hue which had chased the former pallor of the cheeks, and the slender hand, which held the pistol, trembled almost imperceptibly.