"My darling!" he murmured, passionately—"my darling, my life, my love, my wife! Oh, my God to think, I should love her, wildly, madly still, believing her—knowing her to be false!"
He went up to his dressing-room, his heart full to bursting. A mad, insane longing to go to her, to fold her to his breast, to forgive her all, to take her, guilty or innocent, and let pride and honor go to the winds, was upon him. He loved her so intensely, so passionately, that life without her, apart from her, was hourly increasing torture.
The sight of a folded note lying on the table alone arrested his excited steps. He took it up, looked at the strange superscription, tore it open, ran over its diabolical contents, and reeled as if struck a blow.
"Great Heaven! it is not true! it can not be true! it is a vile, accursed slander! My wife meet this man alone, and at midnight, in that forsaken spot! Oh, it is impossible! May curses light upon the slanderous coward who dared to write this infernal lie!"
He flung it, in a paroxysm of mad fury, into the fire. A flash of flame, and Sybilla Silver's artfully written note was forever gone. He started up in white fury.
"I will go to her room; I will see for myself! I will find her safely asleep, I know!"
But a horrible misgiving filled him, even while he uttered the brave words. He dashed out of his room and into his wife's. It was deserted. He entered the bedroom. She was not there; the bed had not been slept in. He passed to her boudoir; that, too, was vacant.
Sir Everard seized the bell-rope and rang a peal that resounded with unearthly echoes through the sleeping house. Five minutes of mad impatience—ten; then Claudine, scared and shivering, appeared.
"Where is your mistress?"
"Mon Dieu! how should I know? Is not my lady in bed?"