What was to be done? The arcade was too high to allow him to drop; and yet there seemed to be no other mode of escape possible.
It was a moment of horrible suspense.
"Heath loves you, Blanche," he said presently, with a certain fierceness in his tone.
"I know it," she said, sadly.
There was a pause. She watched his countenance with anxiety: angry passions seemed drifting over his soul like the clouds over a stormy sky; and she, not understanding the tortures of jealousy, of hate, of revenge, of fierce resolutions as quickly chased away as formed, which then agitated him, looked with trembling at his distorted face.
"By God!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I will triumph yet."
Then seizing her by the waist, he carried her back again into the room.
"Cecil, Cecil," she said, "let me go. What do you mean? Cecil, you alarm me—set me down."
He tried to stop her mouth, but she struggled in his grasp, from which she at length freed herself.
"Blanche," he said, "we are betrayed. We shall be separated for ever—for ever! There is but one way to prevent it, but one way to defy them."