Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/267

 was crazy when he said that night on the lawn: 'If you should send me from your presence now, I'd laugh at Death, for I have tasted Life!' Why do I keep thinking of what he has said?—Perhaps because he may die to-night!"

She sprang to her feet, clasped her hands nervously and began to cry—softly at first, and then with utter abandonment, sinking again to the ground and burying her face in her arm.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! I'm lonely and heartsick and afraid!" she sobbed. Isobbed. "I [sic] wish I had a friend to share my secret, advise and help me—yes, such a friend as he would be!—he'd know what I ought to do—and I know what he'd say, too—that I'm proud and cruel and selfish—that I'm doing a hideous, unnatural thing—well I'm not! the impulse for vengeance is God's first law—I know it because I feel it, deep, instinctive, resistless!—and I'm going to do it! I'm going to do it!—I hate him! I hate him!"

She rose and returned to the ruins, and sat down on the steps between the white columns. The sun was sinking through an ocean of filmy clouds, reflecting in rapid changes every colour ever dreamed in the soul of the artist. She watched in deep breathless reverence, until the sense of loneliness again overpowered her and she sprang up with restless energy exclaiming: