During all that day had the imprisoned patriot been chafing under his confinement. Since his capture he had been treated like a criminal—housed and fed, as if he were a criminal already convicted.
There was no furniture in the small apartment in which he had been locked up. Only some articles of storage and lumber; but neither chair, table, nor bed. A rough bench was the substitute for all these. On this he sate, sometimes reclined; though he did not often change from one attitude to the other—on account of the difficulty attending the operation: for like a criminal was he also bound. His wrists were crossed behind his back, and there tightly tied; while as an additional security against any attempt to escape, his ankles were lashed together by a piece of splicing rope.
He had made no effort to free himself. The thing appeared hopeless. Even could he have got rid of his rope fastenings, there was a locked door, with a sentry all the time standing, or pacing, outside.
Though keenly feeling the indignity thus put upon him—and sensible of the great danger in which his life was now placed—he had other thoughts that were still more bitter to bear.
Marion Wade was the object of these reflections—she, and her white gauntlet. Not that one, he had himself so proudly worn; but its fellow, which he had seen so tauntingly set on the helmet of the cuirassier captain.
All day long—and it had appeared of endless length—as well as during the hours of the night already passed, scarce for a moment had his mind been able to escape from that harassing thought.
Notwithstanding his efforts to repudiate the suspicion—despite that reckless disavowal of it before Scarthe himself—he could not hinder its recurrence. A hundred times did he ask himself the questions: whether Scarthe had come surreptitiously by the glove, or whether it had been given him as a love-token, like his own?
Over and over did he review the various circumstances, that had transpired between himself and Marion Wade; from the hour when riding listlessly along the forest road, he had been startled into a quick surprise at the sight of her peerless beauty—a surprise as rapidly changing into admiration. Then the after encounters upon the same road—which might have appeared accidental to any other mind than one quickened with love; the dropping of the gauntlet, that might have been deemed a thing of chance, but for the after interview, and confession that it was design; and those fervent speeches, that had passed between them—were they not vows, springing from the profoundest depths of her soul? And had she not, on that same occasion, made to him a complete surrender of her heart—as he to her? If words were to be believed, he had won the heart of Marion Wade. How could he doubt it?
He could, and did doubt; not that she had spoken love-words to him, and listened to his, with apparent complaisance. He could not doubt that—unless under the belief that he had been dreaming. His uncertainty was of a different character—far more unpleasant. It was the suspicion that Marion Wade could give love-looks, speak love-words, and drop love-tokens at pleasure! That which she had done to him, she might do to another. In short he had given way to the belief that she had been coquetting with him.
Of all the pangs that passion may inflict upon the heart of man, this is the most poignant. Love, unrequited, stings sharply enough; but when it has been promised requital—caressed to full fervour, and deluded by a pseudo-reciprocation—afterwards to have its dust-bedimmed eyes opened to the delusion—then indeed does jealousy become what it has been the fashion to call it—a monster.