he
other.

"I will not see him," said Maltravers, hastily moving towards the door;
"you are not fit to--"

"Meet him? no!" said Cesarini, with a furtive and sinister glance, which
a man versed in his disease would have understood, but which Maltravers
did not even observe; "I will retire into your bedroom; my eyes are
heavy. I could sleep."

He opened the inner door as he spoke, and had scarcely reclosed it
before Vargrave entered.

"Your servant said you were engaged; but I thought you might see an old
friend:" and Vargrave coolly seated himself.

Maltravers drew the bolt across the door that separated them from
Cesarini; and the two men, whose characters and lives were so strongly
contrasted, were now alone.

"You wished an interview,--an explanation," said Lumley; "I shrink
from neither. Let me forestall inquiry and complaint. I deceived you
knowingly and deliberately, it is quite true,--all stratagems are fair
in love and war. The prize was vast! I believed my career depended on
it: I could not resist the temptation. I knew that before long you would
learn that Evelyn was not your daughter; that the first communication
between yourself and Lady Vargrave would betray me; but it was worth
trying a _coup de main_. You have foiled me, and conquered: be it so;
I congratulate you. You are tolerably rich, and the loss of Evelyn's
fortune will not vex you as it would have done me."

"Lord Vargrave, it is but poor affectation to treat thus lightly the
dark falsehood you conceived, the awful curse you inflicted upon me.
Your sight is now so painful to me, it so stirs the passions that I
would seek to suppress, that the sooner our interview is terminated the
better. I have to charge you, also, with a crime,--not, perhaps, baser
than the one you so calmly own, but the consequences of which were more
fatal: you understand me?"

"I do not."

"Do not tempt me! do not lie!" said Maltravers, still in a calm voice,
though his passions, naturally so strong, shook his whole frame. "To
your arts I owe the exile of years that should have been better spent;
to those arts Cesarini owes the wreck of his reason, and Florence
Lascelles her early grave! Ah, you are pale now; your tongue cleaves to
your mouth! And think you these crimes will go forever unrequited; think
you that there is no justice in the thunderbolts of God?"

"Sir," said Vargrave, starting to his feet, "I know not what you
suspect, I care not what you believe! B