or he
must have taken her in his arms, as he had done once, months before now.
She had come for protection and for help, and her need was the life
spring of his honour.

As she went on, her voice took colour from her emotion, her hands moved
now and then in short swift gestures, and her dark eyes burned. The
marvellous dramatic power she possessed blazed out under the lash of her
wrongs, and she found words she had only groped for until that moment.
She described the miserably nervous feebleness of the man with scathing
contempt, her tone made evil deeds of his shortcomings, her scorn made
his weakness a black crime; her jealous anger fastened upon Francesca
Campodonico and tore her honour to shreds and her virtues to rags of
abomination; and her flaming pride blazed out in searing hatred and
contempt for the coward who had struck her in the face.

"He broke my fan across my face!" she cried with the ascending
intonation of a fury rising still, and still more fiercely beautiful.
"He slashed my face with it and broke it and threw the bits down at my
feet! There, look at it! That is his work--oh, give it back to him, kill
him for me, tear him to pieces for me--make him feel what I have felt
to-day!"

She had pushed her brown hat and veil back from her head, and her wet
cloak had long ago fallen from her shoulders. One straight, white hand
shot out and fastened upon her companion's arm, as he sat beside her,
and she shook it in savage confidence of his iron strength.

A dead silence followed, but the fire made of the broken chairs roared
and blazed on the low brick hearth. The man kept his eyes upon it
fixedly, as though it were his salvation, for he felt that if he looked
at her he was lost. She had come to him not for love, but for
protection, of her own free will. Yet he felt that his honour was
burning in him, with no longer life, if she stayed there, than the
short, quick fire itself. His voice was thick when he answered, as
though he were speaking through a velvet pall.

"I will kill him, if he will fight," he answered, with an effort. "I
will not murder him, even for you."

She started, for she had not realized how he would take literally what
she said. She had no experience of desperate men in her limited life.

"Murder him? No!" she said, snatching back her hand from his arm. "No,
no! I never meant that."

"I am glad you did not. If you did, I should probably break down and do
it to please you. But if he