'
Then Ravengar approached Hugo, and, Hugo rising to meet him, their faces
almost touched in the middle of the great room.
'You called me a cur,' he said. 'Yet perhaps I am not such a cur after
all. You have beaten me. You mean to finish me; I can see it in your
face. Well, you will regret it more than I shall. Do you know I have
often wished to die? You are right in saying that there is no reason why
I should live. I am only a curse to the world. But you are wrong to
scorn me when you kill me. You ought to pity me. Did I choose my
temperament, my individuality? As I am, so I was born, and from his
character no man can escape.'
And he sat down, and Hugo sat down.
'When is it to be?' Ravengar questioned.
'In a few minutes,' said Hugo impassively, feeding his mortal
resentment on the memory of those hours when he himself had waited for
death in the vault.
'Then I shall have time to ask you how you came to know that Camilla
Payne, or rather Camilla Tudor, is alive.'
'She is not alive,' Hugo explained. 'The suggestion contained in my
decoy letter was a pure invention in order to entice you. As you tempted
me into the vault, so I tempted you here on your way to the vault.'
'But she is alive all the same!' Ravengar persisted.
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