Page:A courier of fortune (1904).djvu/215

Rh alarmed him and kept him silent. Before he could find any words to reply, she continued with equal vehemence.

"Yes, yes, it shall be so. You are right, you are right. His blood will be on my head. I shall be his murderess. His murderess!" She changed her almost hysterical passion to a low tone of intense earnestness as she repeated the words. "His murderess! Then it is right that I should die. Who kills, dies. It is the law of the universe. And how I should welcome death! Do this thing. Kill him; kill him. Do not stay to give me time to learn that he is unworthy; and let me die, loving him, trusting him, and believing him to be the noblest and best man in all fair France. Then indeed can I die happy and be happy to die."

The outburst prompted just the thought she designed.

"If I prove him first to be the scoundrel that he is?"

"You cannot. That you cannot do. Oh, I can bear no more," she cried in a voice vibrating with pain and distress. "He is in your power to do with as you please. Do what you will and so let me free. If he be the man I believe, he will welcome death before my dishonour; and if he be not, at least you can spare me the pain of knowing it. You will not be merciful in one way, then, for the sake of God, be merciless in all. The sooner the end, the more welcome death in such a case."

"I must think of this," he said sullenly.

"What would you do?" Eyes and face and manner all full of fear.

"You shall know this man for the scoundrel he is. You must not cast your life away for a worthless villain. I will have the truth made plain to you."

"Ah, now I see how you hate him," she cried distractedly. "You would blacken his name even in my memory. How hard and harsh a man you are!"

"It is right you should know the truth."

"I do not seek to know it. Spare me. I cannot bear