‘My dear Duke of St. James, save yourself. There is yet time. You have my prayers.’
‘Let me then hope——’
‘Indeed, indeed, it cannot be. Here our conversation on this subject ends for ever.’
‘Yet we part friends!’ He spoke in a broken voice.
‘The best and truest!’ She extended her arm; he pressed her hand to his impassioned lips, and quitted the house, mad with love and misery.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Joys of the Alhambra
THE Duke threw himself into his carriage in that mood which fits us for desperate deeds. What he intended to do, indeed, was doubtful, but something very vigorous, very decided, perhaps very terrible. An indefinite great effort danced, in misty magnificence, before the vision of his mind. His whole being was to be changed, his life was to be revolutionised. Such an alteration was to take place that even she could not doubt the immense yet incredible result. Then despair whispered its cold-blooded taunts, and her last hopeless words echoed in his ear. But he was too agitated to be calmly miserable, and, in the poignancy of his feelings, he even meditated death. One thing, however, he could obtain; one instant relief was yet in his power, solitude. He panted for the loneliness of his own chamber, broken only by his agitated musings.
The carriage stopped; the lights and noise called him to life. This, surely, could not be home? Whirled open the door, down dashed the steps, with all that prompt precision which denotes the practised hand of an aristocratic retainer. (284)