A man stood revealed under the light of the chandelier.
With a suppressed cry of mingled surprise and fierce joy, she stepped back, and Sibyl and her false lover stood face to face.
CHAPTER XVI.
FALSEHOOD AND DECEIT.
"Ah! what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive."—SCOTT.
There was a moment's profound silence, while they stood there confronting each other.
With a face perfectly white, with blazing eyes and rigid lips, Sibyl, majestic in her wrongs, stood erect before him, her form drawn up to its fullest height, her head thrown back, her pale face looking unnaturally white in contrast with her dark hair, like some tragic queen in her festal robes.
All his falsehood, treachery, and deceit—all her own wrongs, her slighted love, her deep humiliation, rushed in a burning torrent through her mind, filling her heart and soul with one consuming longing for vengeance, until she seemed to tower above him, regal in her woman's scorn and hate.
And he, knowing his guilt, feeling, too, that she knew it, momentarily quailed before the dark, fierce glance bent upon him. It was but for a moment, and then all his self-possession and graceful ease of manner returned, mingled with a feeling of intense admiration for the darkly beautiful girl before him.
He had never seen her before, save in her odd, gypsyish dress; but now, in her rich, elegant robes, she looked another being. And with it came another revelation. Underlying all his short-lived passion for Christie was still the old affection for this queenly Sibyl. He had wooed her as a dowerless bride, but now she stood before him the heiress to a princely fortune, equal to his own. Willard Drummond was ambitious. He knew this beauty and heiress would be sought for now by the best men of the day, and he felt what a proud triumph it would be to bear her off from all.