“To think that I should hold within my hands the destinies of those whom most of all the world I hate!” muttered he, as he turned the key and threw back the lid. The box was empty! With a wild cry, like the accent of intense bodily pain, he sprang up and dashed both hands into the vacant space, and then held them up before his eyes, like one who could not credit the evidence of his own senses. The moment was a terrible one, and for a few seconds the staring eyeballs and quivering lips seemed to threaten the access of a fit; but reason at last assumed the mastery, and he sat down before the table and leaned his head upon it to think. Twice before in life had it been his lot to lose a fortune at one turn of the die, but never before had he staked all the revengeful feelings of his bad heart, which, baffled in their flow, now came back upon himself. He sat thus for nigh an hour; and when he arose at last, his features were worn as though by a long illness; and as he moved his fingers through his hair, it came away in masses, like that of a man after fever. CHAPTER XXVI. AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE DUPE AND HIS VICTIM So, then, we meet at last.--Harold. As the rooms began to fill with company, costumed in every variety that taste, fancy, or absurdity could devise, many were surprised that neither was there a host to bid them welcome, nor was there any lady to perform the accustomed honors of reception. The nature of the entertainment, to a certain extent, took off from the awkwardness of this want. In a masquerade, people either go to assume a part, or to be amused by the representation of others, and are less dependent on the attentions of the master or mistress of the house; so that, however struck at first by the singularity of a _fête_ without the presence of the giver, pleasure, ministered to by its thousand appliances, overcame this feeling, and few ever thought more of him beneath whose roof they were assembled. The rooms were splendid in their decoration, lighted _a giomo_, and ornamented with flowers of the very rarest kind. The music consisted of a celebrated orchestra and a regimental band, who played alternately; the guests, several hundred in number, were all attired in fancy costumes, in which every age and nation found its type; while characters from well-known fictions abounded, many of them admirably sustained, and dressed with a pomp and splendor that told the wealth of the wearers.