n upon her with sorrowful sternness.

"Beauty? Mere food for worms--I care not for it! Of what avail is a
fair body tenanted by a fiendish soul? Forgiveness?--you ask too late!
A wrong like mine can never be forgiven."

There ensued a silence. She still embraced me, but her eyes roved over
me as though she searched for some lost thing. The wind tore furiously
among the branches of the cypresses outside, and screamed through the
small holes and crannies of the stone-work, rattling the iron gate at
the summit of the stairway with a clanking sound, as though the famous
brigand chief had escaped with all his chains upon him, and were
clamoring for admittance to recover his buried property. Suddenly her
face lightened with an expression of cunning intensity--and before I
could perceive her intent--with swift agility she snatched from my vest
the dagger I carried!

"Too late!" she cried, with a wild laugh. "No; not too late!
Die--wretch!"

For one second the bright steel flashed in the wavering light as she
poised it in act to strike--the next, I had caught her murderous hand
and forced it down, and was struggling with her for the mastery of the
weapon. She held it with a desperate grip--she fought with me
breathlessly, clinging to me with all her force--she reminded me of
that ravenous unclean bird with which I had had so fierce a combat on
the night of my living burial. For some brief moments she was possessed
of supernatural strength--she sprung and tore at my clothes, keeping
the poniard fast in her clutch. At last I thrust her down, panting and
exhausted, with fury flashing in her eyes--I wrenched the steel from
her hand and brandished it above her.

"Who talks of murder NOW?" I cried, in bitter derision. "Oh, what a joy
you have lost! What triumph for you, could you have stabbed me to the
heart and left me here dead indeed! What a new career of lies would
have been yours! How sweetly you would have said your prayers with the
stain of my blood upon your soul! Ay! you would have fooled the world
to the end, and died in the odor of sanctity. And you dared to ask my
forgiveness--"

I stopped short--a strange, bewildered expression suddenly passed over
her face--she looked about her in a dazed, vague way--then her gaze
became suddenly fixed, and she pointed toward a dark corner and
shuddered.

"Hush--hush!" she said, in a low, terrified whisper. "Look! how still
he stands! how pale he seems! Do not speak--do not mov