would be forced to look upon
her with eyes of gratitude at least, if not of affection. It should
no longer be in his power to scorn her, or to turn away coldly and
cruelly from her proffered hand. He should yet learn to look upon her
as his best friend. He should learn to call her by tender names; and
speak to her words of fondness, of endearment, and of love. Now, as
deep as her despondency had been, so high rose her joy at this new
prospect; and her hope, which rose out of this resolution, was bright
to a degree which was commensurate with the darkness of her previous
despair. He shall live; and he shall be mine--these were the words
upon which her heart fed itself, which carried to that heart a wild
and feverish joy, and drove away those sharp pangs which she had
felt. And now the love which burned within her diffused through all
her being those softer qualities which are born of love; and the hate
and the vengeance upon which she had of late sustained her soul were
forgotten. Into her heart there came a tenderness all feminine, and a
thing unknown to her before that fateful day on which she had first
seen Lord Chetwynde; a tenderness which filled her with a yearning
desire to fly to the rescue of this man, whom she had but lately
handed over to the assassin. She hungered and thirsted to be near
him, to stand by his side, to see his face, to touch his hand, to
hear his voice, to give to him that which should save him from the
fate which she herself had dealt out to him by the hands of her own
agent. It was thus that her love at last triumphed over her
vengeance, and, sweeping onward, drove away all other thoughts and
feelings.

Hers was the love of the tigress; but even the love of the tigress is
yet love; and such love has its own profound depths of tenderness,
its capacity of intense desire, its power of complete self-abnegation
or of self-immolation--feelings which, in the tigress kind of love,
are as deep as in any other, and perhaps even deeper.

But from her in that dire emergency the one thing that was required
above all else was haste. That she well knew. There was no time for
delay. There was one at the side of Lord Chetwynde whose heart knew
neither pity nor remorse, whose hand never faltered in dealing its
blow, and who watched every failing moment of his life with unshaken
determination. To him her cruel and bloody behests had been committed
in her mad hour of vengeance; those behests he was now carryin