he faced her,
could be seen the new fury which was rising within him--all the more
violent, perhaps, from the late calm that had possessed him.

'And yet, for the sake of the past, I might even be willing to comfort
you, if it were possible,' she continued, casting about in her mind for
new tortures with which to rack him, and now suddenly struck with an
inward joy, as her ever-ready invention came to her aid. 'Yes, if I knew
aught of good to tell, I would mention it, for the memory of other days.
But how can I speak with truth, unless to recapitulate new deceits and
wiles which she has practised upon you, and of which, may the gods be my
witness! I would have told you before, but dared not? You say that you
have never loved me, Sergius Vanno. It is well. But if you had done so,
I would have been faithful to you to the end. You say that you loved
her, and that, but for your own falsehood, she would not have strayed
from you. Poor dupe! to believe that, for all that meek, pale face of
hers, she cannot resolve, and act, and mask her purposes as cunningly as
any of the rest of her sex! Shall I tell you more? Do you dream that,
while you have been revelling, she has been idly whimpering in her
chamber? Had you watched outside with me, you might have known better.
Look above your head, Sergius, to where the prison keys are wont to
hang, and tell me where they are now!'

More from mechanical instinct than from any actual purpose of mind--for
he did not, at the first instant, fully comprehend her meaning--Sergius
followed the motion of her hand, and gazed at the wall above his head;
then passed his fingers along until he touched the empty nail--then
looked back inquiringly at her.

'The keys are gone, are they not?' she said. 'Fool! to lock up one party
to a fault, and yet let the other one go free! Do you suppose that
during your carousing with your boon companions, she would fail to
succor him for whose sake she has already lost so much?'

Still he gazed at Leta with a look of puzzled inquiry, which now began,
however, to be disturbed by an expression of painful doubt. Then
suddenly, ascertaining that the keys were really gone, her meaning
flashed upon him; and dropping his hand with a wrathful exclamation, he
turned and strode into the palace. Not, perhaps, with full conviction of
the truth of the suggestion so artfully arrayed before him. But he would
at least prove its truth or falsity; and, with that suspicion fasten