ir Richard! Look at me! Covet me! Take me!"

Apparently he half rose, shuffled towards her, and stopped with a
stifled sound, half a sob, half a growl.

I dared not picture to myself what he must have seen as she stood
fronting him, her hands, as I imagined, at her bosom, tearing back her
robes.

Again I heard her voice go on, challenging him. "Strip me now, Sir
Richard, if you can! Take now what you bought, if you find it here. You
can not? You do not? Ah, then tell me that miracle has been done! She
who was Helena von Ritz, as you knew her, or as you thought you knew
her, _is not here!_"

Now fell long silence. I could hear the breathing of them both, where I
stood in the farther corner of my room. I had dropped both the
derringers back in my pockets now, because I knew there would be no
need for them. Her voice was softer as she went on.

"Tell me, Sir Richard, has not that miracle been done?" she demanded.
"Might not in great stress that thief upon the cross have been a woman?
Tell me, Sir Richard, am I not clean?"

He flung his body into a seat, his arm across the table. I heard his
groan.

"God! Woman! What are you?" he exclaimed. "Clean? By God, yes, as a
lily! I wish I were half as white myself."

"Sir Richard, did you ever love a woman?"

"One other, beside yourself, long ago."

"May not we two ask that other miracle of yourself?"

"How do you mean? You have beaten me already."

"Why, then, this! If I could keep my promise, I would. If I could give
you myself, I would. Failing that, I may give you gratitude. Sir
Richard, I would give you gratitude, did you restore this treaty as it
was, for that new consideration. Come, now, these savages here are the
same savages who once took that little island for you yonder. Twice they
have defeated you. Do you wish a third war? You say England wishes
slavery abolished. As you know, Texas is wholly lost to England. The
armies of America have swept Texas from your reach for ever, even at
this hour. But if you give a new state in the north to these same
savages, you go so far against oppression, against slavery--you do
_that_ much for the doctrine of England, and her altruism in the world.
Sir Richard, never did I believe in hard bargains, and never did any
great soul believe in such. I own to you that when I asked you here this
afternoon I intended to wheedle from you all of Oregon north to
fifty-four degrees, forty minutes. I find in you done some such miracl