whose
letters you hold revenges himself, and stabs me, has been--my lover!"

"Michel!"

"The most cowardly, the vilest being in the world! If he hated me, he
might have killed me; he might have torn off my veil just now, and struck
me across the lips. But to do this, to do this! To attack you, you, you!
Ah! miserable dog; fit only to be stoned to death! Judas! Liar and
coward! Would to heaven I had planted a knife in his heart!"

"Ah! My God!" murmured the Prince, as if stabbed himself.

At this cry of bitter agony from Andras Zilah, Marsa's imprecations
ceased; and she threw herself madly at his feet; while he stood erect and
pale--her judge.

She lay there, a mass of white satin and lace, her loosened hair falling
upon the carpet, where the pale bridal flowers withered beneath her
husband's heel; and Zilah, motionless, his glance wandering from the
prostrate woman to the package of letters which burned his fingers,
seemed ready to strike, with these proofs of her infamy, the distracted
Tzigana, a wolf to threaten, a slave to supplicate.

Suddenly he leaned over, seized her by the wrists, and raised her almost
roughly.

"Do you know," he said, in low, quivering tones, "that the lowest of
women is less culpable than you? Ten times, a hundred times, less
culpable! Do you know that I have the right to kill you?"

"Ah! that, yes! Do it! do it! do it!" she cried, with the smile of a mad
woman.

He pushed her slowly from him.

"Why have you committed this infamy? It was not for my fortune; you are
rich."

Marsa moaned, humiliated to the dust by this cold contempt. She would
have preferred brutal anger; anything, to this.

"Ah! your fortune!" she said, finding a last excuse for herself out of
the depth of her humiliation, which had now become eternal; "it was not
that, nor your name, nor your title that I wished: it was your love!"

The heart of the Prince seemed wrung in a vise as this word fell from
those lips, once adored, nay, still adored, soiled as they were.

"My love!"

"Yes, your love, your love alone! I would have confessed all, been your
mistress, your slave, your thing, if I--I had not feared to lose you, to
see myself abased in the eyes of you, whom I adored! I was afraid, afraid
of seeing you fly from me--yes, that was my crime! It is infamous, ah! I
know it; but I thought only of keeping you, you alone; you, my
admiration, my hero, my life, my god! I deserve to be punished; yes, yes,
I deser