"Sir," he said to Bertie as he held out his hand, "what there is here I welcome you to, and I can only pray that it may not be your lot to grow as familiar with this place as I have become. For now--now--" and Bertie could see his old lips tremble as he spoke, "this place has grown through my unhappiness to be the only spot on earth that I know of--my only home."
"Monsieur le Marquis," said Bertie, "for your greeting, sad as it is and sad as is the spot where we meet, I thank you. So long as I am here--so long!--I shall respect and pity you."
He had taken no heed of the figure on the bed while he was speaking, having, indeed, his back turned to it, but now it forced him to observe it.
For, as he spoke for the first time, that figure--its wild eyes staring as though about to start from its head, and its hands opening and shutting convulsively--was kneeling on the bed, muttering, whining, gasping behind him.
And, turning round suddenly and seeing its contortions and its awful maniacal fear, Bertie reeled back across the calotte, exclaiming:
"My God! Fordingbridge! Face to face at last!"
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
BROKEN HEARTS.
Yet in that very moment he knew that once more Fordingbridge had escaped his vengeance. He recognised in the creature which had flung itself at his feet and was moving, grimacing, and chattering there, that he was mad--that he could no longer right his wrongs by choking the life out of it. Those wild, misty eyes, extended to their utmost with fear and maniacal frenzy, told only too plainly that the brain behind them was gone for ever, that henceforward he had to do with a thing that lived, it was true, but had no sense nor reason. Yet the maniac recognised him, he observed, was striving in his way to sue for mercy--could he be so mad as to be safe from his revenge?
"You know him?" asked the marquis, in his sad, weak voice, he having witnessed the scene with astonishment. "You know him?"