she had begun to rave already, and that the waves of such a tempest were
arising as, if not quelled at their first swell, would sweep her from her
feet and engulf her for ever.

"That--that!" she gasped--"nay--that I swear I will not do! There was
always One who hated me--and doomed and hunted me from the hour I lay
'neath my dead mother's corpse, a new-born thing. I know not whom it
was--or why--or how--but 'twas so! I was made evil, and cast helpless
amid evil fates, and having done the things that were ordained, and there
was no escape from, I was shown noble manhood and high honour, and taught
to worship, as I worship now. An angel might so love and be made higher.
And at the gate of heaven a devil grins at me and plucks me back, and
taunts and mires me, and I fall--on _this_!"

She stretched forth her arms in a great gesture, wherein it seemed that
surely she defied earth and heaven.

"No hope--no mercy--naught but doom and hell," she cried, "unless the
thing that is tortured be the stronger. Now--unless Fate bray me
small--the stronger I will be!"

She looked down at the thing before her. How its stone face sneered, and
even in its sneering seemed to disregard her. She knelt by it again, her
blood surging through her body, which had been cold, speaking as if she
would force her voice to pierce its deadened ear.

"Ay, mock!" she said, setting her teeth, "thinking that I am
conquered--yet am I not! 'Twas an honest blow struck by a creature
goaded past all thought! Ay, mock--and yet, but for one man's sake,
would I call in those outside and stand before them, crying: 'Here is a