n any he had ever known came over him. She
was but as those sovereigns of old who scorned the poor tribunals of
man's justice because they held in their own might the power of so much
heavier chastisement.

"I shall not seek for a legal separation," she resumed; "that is to say,
I shall not, unless you force me to do so to protect myself from you. If
you fail to abide by the conditions I shall prescribe, then you will
compel me to resort to any means that may shelter me from your demands.
But I do not think you will endeavour to force on me conjugal rights
which you obtained over me by a fraud."

All that she desired was to end quickly the torture of this interview,
from which her courage had not permitted her to shrink. She had to
defend herself because she would not be defended by others, and she only
sought to strike swiftly and unerringly so as to spare herself and him
all needless or lingering throes. Her speech was brief, for it seemed to
her that no human language held expression deep and vast enough to
measure the wrong done to her, could she seek to give it utterance.

She would not have made a sound had any murderer stabbed her body; she
would not now show the death-wound of her soul and honour to this man
who had stabbed both to the quick. Other women would have made their
moan aloud, and cursed him. The daughter of the Szalras choked down her
heart in silence, and spoke as a judge speaks to one condemned by man
and God.

"I wish no words between us," she said, with renewed calmness. "You know
your sin; all your life has been a lie. I will keep me and mine back
from vengeance; but do not mistake--God may pardon you, I never! What I
desired to say to you is that henceforth you shall wholly abandon the
name you stole; you shall assign the land of Romaris to the people; you
shall be known only as you have been known here of late, as the Count
von Idrac. The title was mine to give, I gave it you; no wrong is done
save to my fathers, who were brave men."

He remained silent; all excuse he might have offered seemed as if from
him to her it would be but added outrage. He was her betrayer, and she
had the power to avenge betrayal; naught that she could say or do could
seem unjust or undeserved beside the enormity of her irreparable wrongs.

"The children?" he muttered faintly, in an unuttered supplication.

"They are mine," she said, always with the same unchanging calm that was
cold as the frozen earth withou