The former had come many times stealthily to Pisa; for the master of Casa Guiccioli, cheated of his dearest plan, had had recourse to the umbrage of Tuscan officialism. On this day, as it happened, Trevanion had been closeted with the police commandant when that official had been called upon to visé the passports of two strangers: Prince Mavrocordato, a tall commanding Greek, and a slighter, blond-bearded Italian, at whose name the listener had started—with the leap of a plan to his brain. Trevanion had followed the young Count Gamba to his hotel, picked acquaintance and, pretending ignorance of the other’s relationship, had soon told him sufficient for his purpose: that the young and lovely Contessa Guiccioli, lured from Ravenna and her husband, was living at that moment in Pisa—the light-of-love of an English noble whose excesses in Venice had given him the appellation of the milord maligno.
The story had turned the brother’s blood to fire. All he demanded was to be shown the man. Trevanion led him to the palace, where only Fletcher had met their entry, and now the opening of a door had brought this winged vengeance and its object face to face.
The sight of her long-absent brother—Trevanion behind him—the pistol the former held levelled at Gordon’s breast—froze Teresa with sudden comprehension. She stood stock-still, unable to utter a word. Trevanion sprang forward, his finger pointing.
“There he is!” he spat savagely. “There’s your Englishman!”
Gordon had made no move. Unarmed, resistance would have been futile in presence of the poised weapon. So this was the way that lurking Nemesis of his past was to return to him! He was looking, not at Trevanion, but at his companion, fixedly; recalling, with an odd sensation of the unreal, a windy lake with that face settling helplessly in the ripples as he swam toward it, the water roaring in his ears. The outré thought flashed across him how sane and just the homilists of England would call it that he should meet his end in such inglorious fashion at the hands of this particular man.
“You white-livered fool!” scoffed Trevanion. “Why don’t you shoot?”
His companion had paused, eying Gordon in astounded inquiry. His outstretched arm wavered.
The paralysis of Teresa’s fear broke at the instant. She ran to him, throwing her arms around him, snatching at the hand that held the pistol.
“Pietro! Pietro!” she screamed. “Ah, God of love! Hear me, first! Hear me!”
He thrust her to her knees, and again, as Trevanion sneered, his arm stiffened. But the negative of that Genevan picture was before his eyes, too—its tones reversed. He saw himself rising from the beach clasping the hand of his rescuer—heard his own voice say: “You have given me my life; I shall never forget it!”