your own. I changed the dates--I made the letter itself appear written,
not on your first acquaintance with her, but subsequent to your plighted
and accepted vows. Your own handwriting convicted you of mean
suspicions and of sordid motives. These were my arts."

"They were most noble. Do you abide by them--or repent?"

"For what I have done to /thee/ I have no repentance. Nay, I regard
thee still as the aggressor. Thou hast robbed me of her who was all the
world to me--and, be thine excuses what they may, I hate thee with a
hate that cannot slumber--that abjures the abject name of remorse! I
exult in the very agonies thou endurest. But for her--the stricken--the
dying! O God, O God! The blow falls upon mine own head!"

"Dying!" said Maltravers, slowly and with a shudder. "No, no--not
dying--or what art thou? Her murderer! And what must I be? Her
avenger!"

Overpowered with his own passions, Cesarini sank down and covered his
face with his clasped hands. Maltravers stalked gloomily to and fro the
apartment. There was silence for some moments.

At length Maltravers paused opposite Cesarini and thus addressed him:

"You have come hither not so much to confess the basest crime of which
man can be guilty, as to gloat over my anguish and to brave me to
revenge my wrongs. Go, man, go--for the present you are safe. While
she lives, my life is not mine to hazard--if she recover, I can pity you
and forgive. To me your offence, foul though it be, sinks below
contempt itself. It is the consequences of that crime as they relate