She was his.
“My beloved—my beloved,” he whispered, “cruelty to such a woman as you makes sacred the mission of avenging it. You will leave him—with me you will never know aught save happiness.”
She gave a little laugh, and then put her hand in his, not doubtfully, but with an expression of the amplest trustfulness.
“My last scruple is gone,” said she in the same low tone that he had employed. “What you have said has made my mind easy.”
“You will come to me?”
“Till one of us dies.”
She spoke the words with the fire flashing from her eyes as she gazed into his face. The force of that gaze of hers gave him a little shock. It was only a momentary sensation, however; in a second he recollected that he was talking to an Italian, not an Englishwoman.
“Till one of us dies—till one of us dies,” he whispered, poorly imitating her intensity. “Ah, I knew that it would come, my darling. Would I have travelled from England if I had not been certain of you—certain of my own love for you, I mean? And you will come with me—you will leave him? It is his punishment—his righteous punishment.”
“I shall leave him with you, I swear to you,” cried the Marchesa.
For a moment he failed to catch her exact meaning. He did not want the Marchese to be left with him; but of course he perceived the next instant that she meant to say that she would leave her husband and go with him, her lover; and there was no tremor in his voice as he said—