, to out the very soul
of you. She spoke with her hands too, with her shoulders and bosom,
with her head and stamping foot. She never faltered though she ran
from scorn of him to deep scorn of herself, and appealed in turn to his
pride, his pity, his honour and his lust. She had no reticence, set no
bounds: she was everything, or nothing; he was a god, or dirt of the
kennel. In the end--and what a climax!--she stopped in the middle of a
sentence, covered her eyes, sobbed, gave a broken cry, turned and fled
away.

The man, left alone, spread his arms out, and lifted his face to the
sky, as if appealing for the compassion of Heaven. Manvers could see
by the light of a lamp which fell upon him that there were tears in his
eyes. He was pitying himself deeply. "Senor Jesu, have pity!" Manvers
heard him saying. "What could I do? Woe upon me, what could I do?"

To him there, as he stood wavering, returned suddenly the girl. As
swiftly as she had gone she came back, like a white squall. "Ah, son
of a thief? Ah, son of a dog!" and she struck him down with a knife
over the shoulder-blade. He gasped, groaned, and dropped; and she was
upon his breast in a minute, moaning her pity and love. She stroked
his face, crooned over him, lavished the loveliest vocables of her
tongue upon his worthless carcase, and won him by the very excess of
her passion. The fallen man turned in her arms, and met her lips with
his.

Manvers, shaking with excitement, left them. Here again was a Manuela!
Manuela, her burnt face on fire, her eyes blown fierce by rage, her
tawny hair streaming in the wind; Manuela with a knife, hacking the
life out of Esteban, came vividly before him. Ah, those soft lips of
hers could bare the teeth; within an hour of his kissing her she must
have bared them, when she snarled on that other. And her eyes which
had peered into his, to see if liking were there--how had they gleamed.
upon the man she slew? Her sleekness then was that of the cat; but she
had had no claws for him.

Why had she left him her crucifix? After all, had she murdered the
fellow, or protected herself? She told the monk that she had been
driven into a corner--to save Manvers and herself. Was he to believe
that--or his own eyes? His eyes had just seen a Spanish girl with her
lover, and his judgment was warped. Manuela might be of that sort--she
had not been so to him. Nor could she ever be so, since there was no
question of love