He started up with some wild idea of following them, but by now they would be miles on the road; he did not doubt that one day he would kill Tom Wharton; but to-night it was madness; he was deserted and alone, still he had himself at least in hand to face whatever came.
Yet the next instant his impulse was to ride after them at any cost, at any price. She might have waited! A dull agony came over him, he dropped his head on his outspread arms and the dark glimmered with horror.
The curse! To the last shame and misery it was being meted out—an accursed race—accursed.
The word beat in his brain like a drum to execution.
Accursed, abhorred; great and famous as he had been but yesterday, there was not one who would stay to help him meet this moment now.
He was used to standing alone; he had an immeasurable courage, yet his wife’s defection had robbed him of half his strength.
Let her only have waited a little longer—possibly a few poor hours longer and she might have been free indeed.
He rose up blindly and felt for his sword. It was completely dark, only the long window glimmered ghostly at the other end of the room. As he moved he knocked a table over and there was a crash of china as the vases struck the floor, he paused, leaning against the wall with his hand to his sick head.
The room opened into the drawing-room by folding-doors; it seemed, as if, in that other chamber, some one was moving, some one roused by the falling table.
Suddenly a candle appeared like a star in the distance, coming nearer through the dark. His blood leaped for a moment; it might be that she had not gone—it might be that she had returned.