During this interval Lord Hautonville, who had taken his friend Col. Clapham along with him, passed over to Ostend. On reaching Brussels he was maddened almost to fury by finding that his enemy had gone upon an excursion, and would not return for a few days. Feeding on his meditated revenge, and suffering imagination to supply all the facts which were necessary to goad him to the rashest acts of desperation, every moment appeared a century, till Lord Turnstock unsuspectingly drove to the door of the Hotel de Belle Vue, where he was saluted, as soon as he alighted from his carriage, by a challenge from his quondam ally, delivered by the hands of Col. Clapham.
Lord Hautonville had had his suspicions so convincingly corroborated by the answers which he received to certain inquiries concerning the Marquess, that he did not condescend to enter into the slightest explanation relative to the nature of the supposed insult for which he sought revenge; and the latter, in utter ignorance of the cause of offence, could not suppress an involuntary smile, as he returned the challenge to Colonel Clapham, and desired him to tell his friend that it was not his custom to fight with madmen.
An answer so irritating, heightened by the sarcastic air with which it was accompanied, was not calculated to appease; and as it lost nothing in its transit (the second feeling himself now nearly as much enraged as the principal), the message was conveyed in such exaggerated colours, as to deprive Lord Hautonville, for the moment of all self-control. He seized his pistols, rushed into the streets, arrived at the Hotel de Belle Vue, darted into the room where the Marquess was going to dine, and taking a deliberate aim, shot him through the body, without uttering a word. The Marquess fell, the report of a pistol brought numbers of people together; and before Colonel Clapham overtook his friend, he was a prisoner. Surgical aid was immediately obtained, the wounded man removed to bed, his wounds examined, dressed, and pronounced dangerous.
Returning reason made Lord Hautonville speedily sensible of the awful situation in which he had placed himself; rendered more horrible by the assurance that he had no foundation for his conjectures, and therefore not even the excuse of injurious treatment for the dreadful act which he had perpetrated.
Colonel Clapham's first care was to write to England, and apprise the unhappy parents of their son's condition; advising the utmost secrecy respecting the circumstances of this tragical event, and their immediate presence in Brussels, accompanied by whatever confidential legal adviser they considered most likely to give a favourable turn to the aspect of affairs.
The agonies of despair into which Lord and Lady Marchdale were thrown by the dreadful intelligence, almost deprived them of life, and some days elapsed before the unfortunate pair recovered sufficient bodily strength to undertake their mournful expedition. This interval was long enough to put them in possession of the fact that Lord Hautonville's debts amounted to a much larger sum than he had any prospect of being enabled to repay; and several of them revealed the truth that he was a determined gambler, and lived amongst a set remarkable in every way for habits of such dissipation as lead to inevitable destruction.
But who shall attempt to pourtray the feelings of the miserable culprit, when informed by Colonel Clapham that his jealousy was groundless as it had been vindictive; and that the marquess knew nothing whatsoever respecting the elopement of Zorilda. Grief, contrition, self-reproach, despair, took alternate possession of his soul, and he would have laid down millions to insure that life of which but a few hours before he was resolved, at the probable sacrifice of his own, on the cruel extermination.
The solitude of a prison is a powerful preacher to the human soul! Conscience now called up a grisly train of terrifying spectres; and a review of the past rose in hideous contrast with the fate which might have awaited him. Mr. Playfair's counsels, illustrated in the lovely singleness and purity of Zorilda's character, came upon his memory and made him tremble. What a difference between the beloved, the cherished heir of a noble house, and the forlorn captive, whose ignominious end was perhaps destined to pay the forfeit of a murderous deed. The cold dews of death stood now upon that brow on which pride and pleasure were wont to keep perpetual jubilee; and a livid paleness overspread that cheek so lately animated by the flush of enterprize.
Of what avail were resolutions now? The accounts from hour to hour, of the hapless victim's condition, though sufficiently fluctuating to keep the balance trembling between hope and fear, afforded little comfort. If a momentary ray cheered the prospect, it was extinguished in the next instant. Amendment was not progressive, and those transient gleams, which were quenched successively in thicker gloom, only added poignance to despair. In the visions of horror which haunted the mind of Algernon, thoughts of those afflicted parents who were on their way to the scene of sorrow and humiliation continually mingled; and, as if the cup of grief could not be full unless it overflowed, he was now enlightened, and could explain Zorilda's disappearance. He was now able to perceive in her secret departure, the same noble self-denying spirit which had always distinguished every action of her life; and to curse the ungoverned passion which had hurried him into irretrievable ruin. A sudden frenzy would seize his frame, when scenes of early mutual love, and childish innocence, glanced across memory in the prison's darksome solitude, to torture his imagination—but more was still to be endured.