Norwood seated himself beside the priest, without speaking, and, folding his arms, prepared to hear him calmly.
“My Lord Norwood,” said the Abbé, “I will not torture you by any prolixity, nor will I waste your time by any appeal to your forgiveness. If my own conduct in the affair I am about to relate should not meet your approval, it is enough that I have satisfied my own conscience.”
“Go on—go on,” said Norwood, in a tone of almost sarcasm; “I see that you have injured me, let me hear how and where.”
“You shall hear both, my Lord, and briefly too. I have only to invoke your memory, and the story is told. You remember being at Salamanca, in the year 18——? you remember, too, a certain ballerina of the Grand Opera? You had seen her first at Seville—”
“Yes——; yes,” broke in Norwood, reddening deeply; “I know what you mean—the girl was my mistress.”
“Stay, my Lord. Do not dishonor yourself; she was your wife,—legally and formally married to you,—the registry of the act is in existence, and the priest who performed the ceremony now stands before you.”
“By Heaven!” said Norwood, springing to his feet,
“You are a bold fellow to dare this game with me! and to try it in such a place as this!”
“Ay, my Lord, the river rolls dark and silently beside us,” said D'Esmonde, calmly; “and the Arno has covered up many a more dreadful deed; but I have no fears,—not one. I am unarmed, in strength I am certainly not your equal, and yet, I repeat it, my heart assures me that I stand in no peril.”
For an instant Norwood seemed to hesitate how to act. The great veins of his face and forehead became swollen and knotted, and he breathed with the rushing sound of severe, restrained passion. At last, as if to guard himself against any sudden impulse of anger, he walked round and seated himself at the opposite side of the table.