The cab was crawling past the Fairholme mansion, and Cynthia’s astonished eyes were regarding its style and general air of magnificence with some degree of heart-sinking—for it did then seem to be true that Mrs. Devar’s original estimate of Fitzroy was correct—when a man sprang out of another taxi in front of the door, and glanced at her while in the very act of running up the steps. Recognition was mutual. Dale muttered under his breath a wholly unjustifiable assumption as to his future state, halted dubiously, and then signaled to Cynthia’s driver to stop. He strode towards her across the road, and thrust his head through the open window.
“Of course, miss,” he said roughly, “you don’t know what has happened?”
“No,” she said, too greatly surprised to resent his strange manner.
“Well,” he growled, “somebody’s been nearly killed on your account, that’s all.”
“Somebody,” she repeated, and her lips went white.
“Yes, you ought to guess well enough who it is. He and that rotten Frenchman fought a duel this morning on the sands near Calais, and Marinny as good as murdered him.”
Dale’s heart was sore against her as the cause of his master’s plight, but even in his own distress he was quick to see the shrinking terror in the girl’s eyes.
“Are you speaking of Mr. Fitzroy?” she demanded. “Are you telling the truth? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, man, tell me what you mean.”
“I mean what I say, miss,” said he more softly. “I have left him almost at death’s door in an hotel at Calais. That damned Frenchman ... I beg your pardon, miss, but I can’t contain myself when I think of him—ran a sword through him this morning, and would have killed him outright if he hadn’t been stopped by some other gentlemen. And now, there he is, a-lying in the hotel, with a doctor and a nurse trying to coax the life back into him, while I had to scurry back here to tell his people.”
Some women might have shrieked and fainted—not so Cynthia. At that instant there was one thing to be done, and one only. She saw the open road, and took it without faltering or thought as to the future.