And with this characteristic speech, the cornet hastened out of the room.
“I must win this woman,” said Scarthe, rising to his feet, and striding across the floor with an air of resolution: “‘I must win her, if I should lose my soul!’ Oh! beauty! beauty! the true and only enchanter on earth. Thou canst change the tiger into a tender lamb, or transform the lamb into a fierce tiger. What was I yesterday but a tiger? To-day subdued—tamed to the softness of a suckling. ’Sdeath! Had I but known that such a woman was watching—for she was there no doubt—I might have avoided that accursed encounter. She saw it all—she must have seen it! Struck down from my horse, defeated—’Sdeath!”
The exclamation hoarsely hissing through his teeth, with the fierce expression that accompanied it, showed how bitterly he bore his humiliation. It was not only the pain of his recent wound—though that may have added to his irritation—but the sting of defeat that was rankling in his soul—defeat under such eyes as those of Marion Wade!
“’Sdeath!” he again exclaimed, striding nervously to and fro. “Who and what can the fellow be? Only his name could they tell me—nothing more—Holtspur! Not known to Sir Marmaduke before yesterday! He cannot, then, have been known to her? He cannot have had an opportunity for that? Not yet—not yet!”
“Perhaps,” he continued after a pause, his brow once more brightening, “they have never met? She may not have witnessed the unfortunate affair? Is it certain she was on the ground? I did not see her.
“After all the man may be married? He’s old enough. But, no: the glove in his hat—I had forgotten that. It could scarcely be his wife’s! Ha! ha! ha! what signifies? I’ve been a blessed Benedict myself; and yet while so, have worn my beaver loaded with love-tokens. I wonder to whom that glove belonged. Ha! Death and the devil!”
Scarthe had been pacing the apartment, not from side to side, but in every direction, as his wandering thoughts carried him. As the blasphemous exclamation escaped from his lips, he stopped suddenly—his eyes becoming fixed upon some object before him!
On a small table that stood in a shadowed corner of the apartment, a glove was lying—as if carelessly thrown there. It was a lady’s glove—with gauntlet attached, embroidered with gold wire, and bordered with lace. It appeared the very counterpart of that at the moment occupying his thoughts—the glove that had the day before decorated the hat of Henry Holtspur!
“By heaven, ’tis the same!” he exclaimed, the colour forsaking his cheeks as he stood gazing upon it. “No—not the same,” he continued, taking up the glove, and scrutinising it with care. “Not the same; but its mate—its fellow! The resemblance is exact; the lace, the embroidery, the design—all. I cannot be mistaken!”
And as he repeated this last phrase, he struck his heel fiercely upon the floor.