poison and died.

Dame Zudar, meanwhile, had been regarding the sufferings of her mortal
foe with devilish enjoyment.

There she stood, her arms folded across her breast, facing her enemy,
whose warm blood frequently spurted over her face.

"'Tis no good hurting him that way," she murmured to herself. "A boor
howls if you nip him, this sort only holds his tongue just as if he had
a soul different from the others...."

"This was the very spot where you made my father bleed," she cried. "Do
you recollect Dudoky, eh? There he lay, where you lie now, and you stood
beside him, as I now stand beside you, and revelled in it. But my father
wept and howled beneath his torments while you only keep silent. I
could not bear to look on, I ran away and hid myself in my room, but
there also I kept on hearing his shrieks. I heard them through two thick
walls. Twenty years have passed since then, and through those twenty
years I still hear him. I want to hear you weep too, and not mock your
executioners by putting on a stone-cold face like that. Yes, you shall
weep, you shall entreat. I will not be happy till I see your eyes full
of tears."

Hetfalusy regarded the fury contemptuously, and knitted his lips.

And then he called her a name, a low, degrading name, the worst of all
names that a man can call a woman.

With a hiss of rage the virago rushed upon him with the frantic idea of
plunging her knife in his heart.

But nay, not so.

Her face was white with fury, her whole frame trembled.

"I became that all through you!" she gasped with husky rage. "But you
will not mock me for it much longer. Do you see your grandchild here in
my power?"

"You swore you would not hurt her."

"I swore I would not kill her, but I will make her what I was. By Heaven
and Earth and all the torments of Hell, I swear I will do it."

"Woman!" stammered Hetfalusy, and his face lost at last its expression
of stony endurance.

"Ha-ha!" cried the virago, with a laugh like the howl of a wild beast.
"The last scion of the house of Hetfalusy will do credit to a house of
ill-fame. Look how lovely she is! Look at her face, her figure, her
eyes! As innocent as an angel too! Ah! you are weeping now, are you? But
you will have to weep tears of blood, you accursed old wretch, for what
I say I mean to do!"

"Woman, if you believe in God----" began the old man, writhing to free
himself from his bonds.

"I don't!" the woman yelled back defiantly. "There