orm, she had prowled
about the house, had raised the latch, had waited for a loud peal of
thunder ere she passed the door, and had stolen shadow-like into the
darkest corner of the room, with a patience and a determination that
nothing could disturb. And now, when she stood at the goal of her worst
wishes, even now, when she looked down upon the two beings by whom she
had been thwarted and deceived, her fierce self-possession did not
desert her; her lips quivered over her locked teeth, her bosom heaved
beneath her drenched garments, but neither sighs nor curses, not even a
smile of triumph or a movement of anger escaped her.

She never looked at Antonina; her eyes wandered not for a moment from
Hermanric's form. The quickest, faintest gleam of firelight that
gleamed over it was followed through its fitful course by her eager
glance, rapid and momentary as itself. Soon her attention was fixed
wholly upon his hands, as they lay over the scabbard of his sword; and
then, slowly and obscurely, a new and fatal resolution sprung up within
her. The various emotions pictured in her face became resolved into
one sinister expression, and, without removing her eyes from the Goth,
she slowly drew from the bosom-folds of her garment a long sharp knife.

The flames alternately trembled into light and subsided into darkness
as at first; Hermanric and Antonina yet continued in their old
positions, absorbed in their thoughts and in themselves; and still
Goisvintha remained unmoved as ever, knife in hand, watchful, steady,
silent as before.

But beneath the concealment of her outward tranquillity raged a
contention under which her mind darkened and her heart writhed. Twice
she returned the knife to its former hiding-place, and twice she drew
it forth again; her cheeks grew paler and paler, she pressed her
clenched hand convulsively over her bosom, and leant back languidly
against the wall behind her. No thought of Antonina had part in this
great strife of secret emotions; her wrath had too much of anguish in
it to be spent against a stranger and an enemy.

After the lapse of a few moments more, her strength returned--her
firmness was aroused. The last traces of grief and despair that had
hitherto appeared in her eyes vanished from them in an instant. Rage,
vengeance, ferocity, lowered over them as she crept stealthily forward
to the very side of the Goth, and, when the next gleam of the fire
played upon him, drew the knife fierc