"At the worst," thought Randal, "if it be not Harley, touch the chord of jealousy, and its vibration will direct me right."
Thus soliloquizing, he arrived at Madame di Negra's.
Now, in reality, the Marchesa's inquiries as to Lord Lansmere's family had their source in the misguided, restless, despairing interest with which she still clung to the image of the young poet, whom Randal had no reason to suspect. That interest had become yet more keen from the impatient misery she had felt ever since she had plighted herself to another. A wild hope that she might yet escape--a vague regretful thought that she had been too hasty in dismissing Leonard from her presence--that she ought rather to have courted his friendship, and contended against her unknown rival, at times drew her wayward mind wholly from the future to which she had consigned herself. And, to do her justice, though her sense of duty was so defective, and the principles which should have guided her conduct were so lost to her sight, still her feelings toward the generous Hazeldean were not so hard and blunted, but what her own ingratitude added to her torment; and it seemed as if the sole atonement she could make to him was to find an excuse to withdraw her promise, and save him from herself. She had caused Leonard's steps to be watched; she had found that he visited at Lord Lansmere's; that he had gone there often, and staid there long. She had learned in the neighborhood that Lady Lansmere had one or two young female guests staying with her. Surely this was the attraction--here was the rival!
Randal found Beatrice in a state of mind that favored his purpose. And first turning his conversation on Harley, and noting that her countenance did not change, by little and little he drew forth her secret.
Then, said Randal, gravely, "If one whom you honor with a tender thought, visits at Lord Lansmere's house, you have, indeed, cause to fear for yourself, to hope for your brother's success in the object which has brought him to England--for a girl of surpassing beauty is a guest in Lord Lansmere's house; and I will now tell you that that girl is she whom Count Peschiera would make his bride."
As Randal thus spoke, and saw how his listener's brow darkened and her eye flashed, he felt that his accomplice was secured. Violante! Had not Leonard spoken of Violante, and with such praise? Had not his boyhood been passed under her eyes? Who but Violante could be the rival? Beatrice's abrupt exclamations after a moment's pause, revealed to Randal the advantage he had gained. And partly by rousing her jealousy into revenge--partly by flattering her love with assurances that, if Violante were fairly removed from England, were the wife of Count Peschiera--it would be impossible that Leonard could remain insensible to her own attractions--that he, Randal, would undertake to free her honorably from her engagement to Frank Hazeldean, and obtain from her brother the acquittal of the debt which had first fettered her hand to that confiding suitor--he did not quit the Marchesa until she had not only promised to do all that Randal might suggest, but impetuously urged him to mature his plans, and hasten the hour to accomplish them. Randal then walked some minutes musing and slow along the streets, revolving the next meshes in his elaborate and most subtle web. And here his craft luminously devised its master-piece.