‘But you will at least tell me the name of my benefactor, and when I shall have the great felicity of seeing her again.’
‘If I disclose myself to you, my secret must be respected. Some time, when I know you better, I will tell you more. I live in Ventnor Street, Fitzroy Square. You may come and see me any night at ten. You must inquire for Marie St Jean.’
‘I will come,’ Le Gautier exclaimed, kissing the proffered hand gallantly. ‘Nothing save the sternest duty shall keep me from Fitzroy Square.’
‘And you will respect my secret? I, too, am on the business of the League. You will guard my secret?’
‘On my life!’ was the fervid response.—‘Goodnight, and au revoir.’
‘On his life,’ Isodore murmured as she walked rapidly away in the direction of the Temple Gardens.
It was a beautiful night, the moon hanging behind Westminster, and throwing a glowing track along the swift rushing river, dancing like molten silver as it turned and switched under the arches of Waterloo. It was getting quiet now, save for the echoing footfall from a few hurrying feet or the shout of voices from the Surrey shore. Soft and subdued came the hoarse murmurs of the distant Strand; but Isodore heeded them not. In imagination, she was standing under the shadow of the grape-vines, the sunny Tiber down at her feet, and a man was at her side. And now the grapes were thorns, the winding Tiber the sullen Thames, and the hero standing by her side, a hero no longer, but a man to be despised—and worse. As she walked along, busy among the faded rose-leaves of the past, a hand was laid upon her arm, and Valerie stood before her.
‘I thought you were going to walk over me,’ she said. ‘I knew you would return this way, and came to meet you.—Have you seen him?’
‘Yes, I have seen him; and what I have heard, does not alter my feelings. He is cold and vain, callous and unfeeling as ever. And to think I once loved that man, and trusted him! The poor fool thinks he has made another conquest, another captive to his bow and spear. Under cover of my veil, I have been studying his features. It is well he thinks so; it will help me to my revenge.—Valerie, he is going to call upon me to-morrow night at ten o’clock.’
‘But consider what a rash thing you are doing. Besides, how is this going to benefit you or injure him? He will boast of it; he will talk of it to his friends, and injure you.’