"She shall pay for it," he said to himself. "Madly as I love her, I will not spare her. When I have humbled her pride, I will worship her and marry her; not until then. So it was she, all the time; she looked into my eyes without recognition; she dared me, braved me, laughed at me. She shall suffer. She is the most magnificent and dauntless creature I ever beheld; she is grand enough for a Charlotte Corday, a Joan of Arc. By Heaven! how many girls would have come to me crying, praying that I would keep their secret; she laughs at me, defies me. I will repay her!" His whole soul was torn between passionate love and passionate anger; at one time he felt inclined to weep at her feet, to pray and beseech her to love him, to be his wife; at another time to feel that he must upbraid her with her perfidy, her falsity, her deceit. Which spirit would master him when he stood in her presence he hardly knew; it would depend upon herself. If she were defiant, so should he be; if she were gentle, he would be the same. Of one thing he was quite determined--do, say what she might, she should be his wife. It would be a most dishonorable thing to threaten to hold her secret over her; but, if she compelled him, he would do it. No thought of pity came into his mind, but he wondered much. That news--the news of her father's succession to the earldom, and his return home--must have reached her while she was in Florence with him. No one even knew where he was; how, then, could she learn it. It struck him that was the reason she had left him; he had not thought of that before; it was because this news came to her, and she would not be found with him. But who could have told her?--that was the puzzle. Some one must have gone straight from England to Florence. The more he thought of it the more he was puzzled. He felt quite certain that on the morning he left her to secure her opera box, and to purchase flowers for her, she knew nothing of it. He had left her by the river-side; when he returned she was gone. During that interval, short as it was, some one must have found her, have told her, and brought her to England. Who could that some one be? Not Earle, surely not Earle, her lover--surely not he! "He would have been more likely to kill her than to bring her home if he had found her with me," he said to himself. He was keen enough, but it never occurred to him that she had the skill to deceive Earle as well.