"Yes," he said, inwardly, "this beautiful Sibyl, this regal Queen of the Isle, shall be mine. I have commenced a desperate game, but the end is not yet."
And all this had passed through the minds of both in far less time than it has taken to describe it.
Drummond was the first to break the silence, which was growing embarrassing.
"My own Sibyl," he said, advancing, and attempting to take her hand, "I began to fear we were destined never to meet more. Has this new freak of Dame Fortune made you forget all your old friends?"
"Back, sir!" she thundered, in a terrible voice. "Do you dare speak to me like this! Oh, man! false and perjured, does not your craven soul shrink to the dust before the woman you have wronged?"
"Sibyl, you are mad!" he cried, impetuously.
"Mad! Oh, would to Heaven I were! Then, perhaps, this aching heart would not suffer the tortures that it does. Mad? It would be well for you if I were; but I am sane enough, to live for vengeance on you."
"Sibyl! Sibyl! you rave! In Heaven's name, what have I done?"
"Done? Oh, falsest of the false! have you the brazen effrontery, to stand before me, and ask such a question as that? Done!—that, which a life-time can never repair. May Heaven's worst curses light on you, for what you have done!"
He almost shrank before that white, terrible face, that corrugated brow, those lightning eyes, those white, cold lips, that mingled look of hatred and utter desolation, her beautiful countenance wore.