"Yes. There was a quarrel, yesterday, between these two—and he left her. I found her this morning—dead! I have told him all—the part I have played at your bidding. I shall tell it again in a court of justice, I pray God!"
"You can tell it when and where you please," replied Victor, with horrible calmness. "I shall not be there to hear it."
He walked out of the house. Douglas Dale had not yet recovered consciousness, and there was no one to hinder Carrington's departure.
For some time he walked on, unconscious whither he went, unable to grasp or realize the events that had befallen. But at last-dimly, darkly, grim shapes arose out of the chaos of his brain.
There would be a trial—some kind of trial!—Douglas Dale would not be baffled of vengeance if the law could give it him. His crime—what was it, if it could be proved? An attempt to murder—an attempt the basest, the most hideous, and revolting. What hope could he have of mercy—he, utterly merciless himself, expected no such weakness from his fellow-men.
But in this supreme hour of utter defeat, his thoughts did not dwell on the hazards of the future. The chief bitterness of his soul was the agony of disappointment—of baffled hope—of humiliation, degradation unspeakable. He had thought himself invincible, the master of his fellow-men, by the supremacy of intellectual power, and remorseless cruelty. And he was what? A baffled trickster, whose every move upon the great chessboard had been a separate mistake, leading step by step to the irrevocable sentence—checkmate!
The ruined towers of Champfontaine arose before him, as in a vision, black against a blood-red sky.
"I can understand those mad devils of '93—I can understand the roll-call of the guillotine—the noyades—the conflagrations—the foul orgies of murderous drunkards, drunken with blood. Those men had schemed as I have schemed, and worked as I have worked, and waited as I have waited—to fail like me!"
He had walked far from the West-end, into some dreary road eastward of the City, choosing by some instinct the quietest streets, before he was calm enough to contemplate the perils of his position, or to decide upon the course he should take.
A few minutes' reflection told him that he must fly—Douglas Dale would doubtless hunt him as a wild beast is hunted. Where was he to go? Was there any lair, or covert, in all that wide city where he might be safely hidden from the vengeance of the man he had wronged so deeply?