He knew that Camilla was dead. He had had the very best and most
convincing evidence of the fact. He knew that Ravengar's suspicions were
without foundation, utterly wrong-headed; and yet those statements of
his enemy had unsettled him. They had not unsettled the belief of his
intelligence, but they had unsettled his soul's peace. And that
curiosity to learn the whole truth about the history of the relations
between Francis Tudor and Camilla, that curiosity which had slumbered
for months, and which had been so suddenly awakened by Ravengar's lure
of the morning, was now urged into a violent activity.
Nor was this all. Camilla was surely dead. But supposing that by some
incredible chance she was not dead (lo! the human heart), could he kill
Ravengar? This question had presented itself to him as he sat in the
dome listening to Ravengar's asseverations that Camilla lived. And the
mere ridiculous, groundless suspicion that she lived, the mere fanciful
dream that she lived, had quite changed and softened Hugo's mood. He had
struggled hard to keep his resolution to kill Ravengar, but it had
melted away; he had fanned the fire of his mortal hatred, but it had
cooled, and at length he had admitted to himself, angrily, reluctantly,
that Ravengar had escaped the ordeal of the vault.
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