iation seemed to have succeeded! And now? It was mere
delusion and deception. He who was blind sees. He who was to perish in
misery is permitted, with a sword at his side, to gloat over our
destruction. Listen, if the good news has not already reached you! I,
too, am condemned to death. But what do I care for myself? Even less than
those to whom we pray and offer sacrifices for the betrayed woman. Now I
am learning to know them! Thus Nemesis thanks me for the lavish gifts I
have bestowed upon her? Just before my end she throws you, the rewarded
traitor, into my way! I must submit to have the hated foe, whose blinding
was the sole pleasure in my ruined life, look me in the face with
insolent joy."

Hermon's quick blood boiled.

With fierce resentment he grasped her hand, which lay on the rope,
pressed it violently in his strong clasp, and exclaimed, "Stop, mad
woman, that I may not be forced to think of you as a poisonous serpent
and repulsive spider!"

Ledscha had vainly endeavoured to withdraw her hand while he was
speaking. Now he himself released it; but she looked up at him in
bewilderment, as if seeking aid, and said sadly: "Once--you know that
yourself--I was different--even as long as I supposed my vengeance had
succeeded. But now? The false goddess has baffled every means with which
I sought to punish you. Who averted the sorest ill treatment from my
head? And I was even defrauded of the revenge which it was my right, nay,
my duty, to exercise."

She finished the sentence with drooping head, as if utterly crushed, and
this time she did not laugh, but Hermon felt his wrath transformed to
sympathy, and he asked warmly and kindly if she would let nothing appease
her, not even if he begged her forgiveness for the wrong he had done her,
and promised to obtain her life, nay, also her liberty.

Ledscha shook her head gently, and gravely answered: "What is left me
without hate? What are the things which others deem best and highest to a
miserable wretch like me?"

Here Hermon pointed to the bridge-builder, bound to the post, saying,
"Yonder man led you away from the husband whom you had wedded, and from
him you received compensation for the love you had lost."

"From him?" she cried furiously, and, raising her voice in a tone of the
most intense loathing: "Ask yonder scoundrel himself! Because I needed a
guide, I permitted him to take me away from my unloved husband and from
the Hydra. Because he would help me t