If he were arrested, owing to Irene's abduction, he
would demand to be confronted with von Kerber, would ask that she, too,
should be arraigned with the Austrian, and put forward such an
indisputable plea that, whatever the outcome for the Italian, her
English friends must recoil from her with indignation. And there was
worse in store. Mr. Fenshawe's generosity might provide the means of
returning to Europe, but she would go back discredited, a mere
adventuress, while the publicity attached to the yacht's errand could
hardly fail to bring her name into fatal notoriety. In a word, social
ruin stared her in the face, and the prospect was so unpleasing that
her despairing glance turned more than once towards a dressing-case
containing drugs whose labels spelt oblivion.
Then came the Arab, with news of Irene's return, and, like any
desperate gamester who ventures the last shreds of a wasted capital on
some almost impossible chance, she determined to fight Alfieri to the
end.
It was not a thing to be done in cold blood.
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