Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/186

 I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together, I offered to continue my brigand's life, if that would please her. Everything, sir, everything—I offered her everything if she would only love me again.

She said: "Love you again? That's not possible. Live with you? I will not do it."

I was wild with fury. I drew my knife. I would have had her look frightened and sue for mercy—but that woman was a demon. I cried: "For the last time I ask you, Will you stay with me?"

"No! No! No!" she said and she stamped her foot. Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger and cast it into the brushwood. I struck her twice over—I had taken Garcia's knife because I had broken my own. At the second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me. Then they grew dim and the lids closed.—For a good hour I lay there prostrate beside the corpse.'—

No play-acting could make the scene so pregnant and palpitant with human-stuff and alive in vision