Growing impatient at length, Montalvo unlocked the prison door and
opened it, to discover Lysbeth and her husband kneeling side by side in
the centre of the room like the figures on some ancient marble monument.
They heard him and rose. Then Dirk folded his wife in his arms in a
long, last embrace, and, loosing her, held one hand above her head in
blessing, as with the other he pointed to the door.

So infinitely pathetic was this dumb show of farewell, for no word
passed between them while he was present, that not only his barbed
gibes, but the questions that he meant to ask, died upon the lips of
Montalvo. Try as he might he could not speak them here.

"Come," he said, and Lysbeth passed out.

At the door she turned to look, and there, in the centre of the room,
still stood her husband, tears streaming from his eyes, down a face
radiant with an unearthly smile, and his right hand lifted towards the
heavens. And so she left him.

Presently Montalvo and Lysbeth were together again in the little room.

"I fear," he said, "from what I saw just now, that your mission has
failed."

"It has failed," she answered in such a voice as might be dragged by an
evil magic from the lips of a corpse. "He does not know the secret you
seek, and, therefore, he cannot tell it."

"I am sorry that I cannot believe you," said Montalvo, "so"--and he
stretched out his hand towards a bell upon the table.

"Stop," she said; "for your own sake stop. Man, will you really commit
this awful, this useless crime? Think of the reckoning that must be paid
here and hereafter; think of me, the woman you dishonoured, standing
before the Judgment Seat of God, and bearing witness against your naked,
shivering soul. Think of him, the good and harmless man whom you are
about cruelly to butcher, crying in the ear of Christ, 'Look upon Juan
de Montalvo, my pitiless murderer----'"

"Silence," shouted Montalvo, yet shrinking back against the wall as
though to avoid a sword-thrust. "Silence, you ill-omened witch, with
your talk of God and judgment. It is too late, I tell you, it is too
late; my hands are too red with blood, my heart is too black with sin,
upon the tablets of my mind is written too long a record. What more can
this one crime matter, and--do you understand?--I must have money, money
to buy my pleasures, money to make my last years happy, and my deathbed
soft. I have suffered enough, I have toiled enough, and I will win
wealth and