The Wicked Marquis

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

He crossed the room a little more slowly than usual, and his sister, who was still watching him critically, sighed. There was no doubt at all that his walk was becoming the walk of an old man. The stoop of the shoulders was also a new thing. She counted up his age on her fingers, and, rising from her place, looked at herself in the mirror opposite. Her face for a moment was hard and set, and her fingers clenched.

"Years!" she muttered to herself. "How I hate them!"

The Marquis selected a grey Homburg hat of considerable antiquity, and a thicker stick than usual, from the rack in the hall. The front doors stood wide open, and he walked out into the pleasant sunshine. It was a warm morning, but twice he shivered as he passed down the broad sweep of drive and, with a curious sensation of unfamiliarity, crossed the little bridge over the moat, the few yards of park, and finally approached the palings which bordered Richard Vont's domain. The mist still seemed to linger before his eyes, but through it he could see the familiar figure seated in his ancient chair, with the book upon his knee. The Marquis drew close to the side of the palings.

"Richard Vont," he began, "I have come down from Mandeleys to speak to you. Will you listen to what I have to say?"

There was no reply. The Marquis drew the letter from his pocket.

"You are a cruel and stubborn man, Vont," he continued. "You have gone far out of your way to bring injury and unhappiness upon me. All your efforts are as nothing. Will you hear from me what has happened?"

There was silence, still grim silence. The Marquis stretched out his hand and leaned a little upon the paling.

"I took your daughter, Richard Vont, not as a libertine but as a lover. It was perhaps the truest impulse my life has ever felt. If there was sin in it, listen. Hear how I am punished. Month followed month and year followed year, and Marcia was content with my love and I with hers, so that during all this time my lips have touched no other woman's, no other woman has for a moment engaged even my fancy. I have been as faithful to your daughter, Richard Vont, as you to your vindictive enmity. From a discontented and unhappy girl she has become a woman with a position in the world, a brilliant writer, filled with the desire and happiness of life to her finger tips. From me she received the education, the travel, the experience which have helped her to her place in the world, and with them I gave her my heart. And now—you are listening, Richard Vont? You will hear what has happened?"

Still that stony silence from the figure in the chair. Still that increasing mist before the eyes of the man who leaned towards him.

"Your daughter, Richard Vont," the Marquis concluded, "has taken your vengeance into her own hands. Your prayers have come true, though not from the quarter you had hoped. You saw only a little way. You tried to strike only a foolish blow. It has been given to your daughter to do more than this. She has broken my heart, Richard Vont. She grew to become the dearest thing in my life, and she has left me.—Yesterday she was married."