He went away—a raging demon in his heart.
“Lady Gaynor was right,” he said to himself. “Force and questionable means must be employed or I am a ruined man! But I have my bird safely caged. She cannot escape me; she shall not, by Heaven! Now have I to conciliate the vampires who seek for my heart’s blood—to prove to them that Lady Elaine is under my protection—living in my house. I know that I no longer belong to myself, and that my life is a living death—all for what?—Money! Money! And when I have humbled myself to these birds of prey, whose talons are red with the blood of human hearts, I have to turn toward that old dotard—the Duke of Rothwell, and lie and fawn to him—for what?—Money! Money!”
He ground his teeth with impotent fury, sprang into a cab, and ordered the driver to take him to Oxford Circus, where we will leave him.
In the course of a few days Lady Elaine Seabright was comfortably installed in her new home, and then commenced a weary time of waiting. Two or three of the curious-minded neighbors called at the villa, but she declined to see them. The efforts of the clergyman who claimed that respective district were equally futile, and nearly three weeks passed without one word from Viscount Rivington.
Then a letter reached her from the Duke of Rothwell’s country seat. The viscount professed that he had been unable to go to Scotland on account of his uncle’s indisposition. She made no reply to this, and appeared to be growing thinner and whiter every day to the eyes of the watchful Nina.
“My lady,” she said at last, “I am getting frightened. It is killing you in this stifling place. You ought to go for a morning walk every day.”
“Am I really looking ill, Nina?” asked Lady Elaine, listlessly. “Yes,” she added, looking at herself in a mirror. “What a miserable being I shall be when my lover comes home! This will never do, Nina!”
After that Elaine and Nina were often seen in the park, and many people wondered whom the graceful and lovely girl could be.
At length another letter came from the viscount, and with it a newspaper.
This is what he wrote: