"Very well, you shall go," he replies. "A steamer sails to-morrow. We will go in her."
"You," she cries, with incredulous joy. "It will be too wearisome for you. You are so old."
"Not a bit," contemptuously. "Do you think I will let you go alone?"
[CHAPTER XI.]
The Sea Gull wings her flight blithely and rapidly across the "dark blue waves," as if she were not freighted with the heaviest heart that ever beat in breast of mortal man.
For Vane Charteris, although his passionately longed-for revenge has come to him in such strange and subtle fashion, is a most unhappy man.
Mingled with his almost fierce joy at the speedy retribution that has been dealt out to Maud, his false love, is a stinging, unconquerable remorse that pursues him like an evil spirit, although he cannot bring himself to repentance for what he has done. A shuddering horror takes possession of his soul when he thinks of the cloud of shame and disgrace, and impending peril lowering darkly over that golden head he has loved so dearly, but his passionate anger and resentment are stronger than the languid, admiring affection he had cherished for his fair, queenly-looking betrothed.
In the madness of his insulted pride it seems to Vane impossible that he should lift a finger to save the treacherous one from her terrible fate.
Arriving in the great, smoky city of London, that is hot and smoky and altogether unbearable, Vane throws himself into whatever excitement is going with an abandon and recklessness altogether unlike himself.