"You endure the unpleasantness of your position nobly, Lady Eversleigh," he said; "and I can find no words to express my admiration of your conduct. It is very hard to find oneself the enemy of a lady, and, above all, of a lady whose beauty and whose intellect are alike calculated to inspire admiration. But in this world, Lady Eversleigh, there is only one rule—only one governing principle by which men regulate their lives—let them seek as they will to mask the truth with specious lies, which other men pretend to believe, but do not. That one rule, that one governing principle, is SELF-INTEREST. For the advancement of his own fortunes, the man who calls himself honest will trample on the dearest ties, will sacrifice the firmest friendships. The game which Reginald Eversleigh and I have played against you is a desperate one; but Sir Oswald rendered his nephew desperate when he reduced him, in one short hour, from wealth to poverty—when he robbed him of expectations that had been his from infancy. A desperate man will do desperate deeds; and it has been your fate, Lady Eversleigh, to cross the path of such a man."
He waited, with his eyes fixed on the face of Sir Oswald's wife. But during the whole of his speech she had never once looked at him. She had never withdrawn her eyes from the eastern horizon. Passionless contempt was expressed by that curving lip, that calm repose of eye and brow. It seemed as if this woman's disdain for the plotting villain into whose power she had fallen absorbed every other feeling.
Victor Carrington waited in vain for some reply from those scornful lips; but none came. He took out his cigar-case, lighted a cigar, and sat in a meditative attitude, smoking, and looking down moodily at the black chasm below the base of the tower. For the first time in his life this man, who was utterly without honour or principle—this man, who held self-interest as the one rule of conduct—this unscrupulous trickster and villain, felt the bitterness of a woman's scorn. He would have been unmoved by the loudest evidence of his victim's despair; but her silent contempt stung him to the quick. The hours dragged themselves out with a hideous slowness for the despairing creature who sat watching for the dawn; but at last that long night came to an end, the chill morning light glimmered faint and gray in the east. It was not the first time that Sir Oswald's wife had watched in anguish for the coming of that light. In that lonely tower, with her heart tortured by a sense of unutterable agony, there came back to her the memory of another vigil which she had kept more than two years before.
She heard the dull, plashing sound of a river, the shivering of rushes, then the noise of a struggle, oaths, a heavy crashing fall, a groan, and then no more!
Blessed with her husband's love, she had for a while closed her eyes upon that horrible picture of the past; but now, in the hour of despair, it came back to her, hideously distinct, awfully palpable.
"How could I hope for happiness?" she thought; "I, the daughter of an assassin! The sins of one generation are visited on another. A curse is upon me, and I can never hope for happiness."
The sun rose, and shone broad and full over the barren moorland; but it was several hours after sunrise before the man who took care of the ruins came to release the wretched prisoner.
He picked up a scanty living by showing the tower to visitors, and he knew that no visitors were likely to come before nine o'clock in the morning. It was nearly nine when Honoria saw him approaching in the distance.
It was after nine when he drew up the bridge, and came across it to the ruined fortress.
"You are free from this moment, Lady Eversleigh," said the surgeon, whose face looked horribly pale and worn in the broad sunlight. That night of watching had not been without its agony for him.