"But, good Heavens, man, your life may have to pay the forfeit if you fail to establish an alibi at the trial."
"I must pay the forfeit, then. Carl, I choose death rather than the only available alternative," was the inscrutable and final reply.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
"Words fail me, Colonel Carlyle, when I try to express my burning sense of your injustice in this high-handed outrage! What, in this enlightened age, in this nineteenth century, do men turn palaces into prisons, and debar weak women of their liberties? Am I a slave that you have turned your keys upon me, and set hirelings and slaves to watch me? Am I a criminal? If so, where is my crime?"
A long and elegant saloon in a beautiful palace in Italy. The rich curtains of silk and lace are looped back from the windows, and the view outside is the beautiful Bay of Naples with the clear, blue, sunny sky reflected in its blue and sparkling waves. A garden lies below the windows, rich, in this tropical clime, with beautiful flowers, and vines and shrubbery, while groves of oranges, lemons, figs and dates abound in lavish luxuriance. Within the room that was furnished with princely magnificence and taste, were a man and a woman, the man old, and bowed, and broken, the woman young and more beautiful than it often falls to the lot of women to be. Her delicate features, chiseled with the rare perfection of a head carved in cameo, were flushed with passion, and the glow of anger shone through the pure, transparent skin, tinting it with an unusual bloom. As she walked restlessly up and down the room, in her trailing robe of soft azure hue, her sea-blue eyes blazed under their drooping lashes until they looked black with excitement.
"I tell you," she said, pausing a moment, as no answer came to her passionate outburst, and facing the man before her with a slim, uplifted finger, as if in menace, "I tell you, Colonel Carlyle, that the vengeance of Heaven will fall upon you for this cruel, unmanly deed! Oh, how can you forget your sense of honor as a soldier and a gentleman, and descend to an act so ignoble and unworthy? To imprison a weak and helpless woman, who has no friend or defender save Heaven! Oh, for shame, for shame!"
His eyes fell before the unbearable scorn in hers, and he turned as if to leave the room. But half way to the door he paused and came back to her.
"Bonnibel," he said, sternly, "cease this wild raving, and calm yourself. My troubles are hard enough to bear without the additional weight of unmerited reproaches from you. I am of all men the most miserable."
She shook off the hand with which he attempted to lead her to a seat, as if there had been contagion in the mere contact of his white, aristocratic fingers.