villain whom I struck in madness--and he lies dead! I ask not mercy, but
only justice.'"

She crouched still nearer, her breath and words coming hard and quick.
'Twas indeed as if she spoke to a living man who heard--as if she
answered what he had said.

"There would be men in England who would give it me," she raved,
whispering. "That would there, I swear! But there would be dullards and
dastards who would not. He would give it--he! Ay, mock as thou wilt!
But between his high honour and love and me thy carrion _shall_ not
come!"

By her great divan the dead man had fallen, and so near to it he lay that
one arm was hidden by the draperies; and at this moment this she
saw--before having seemed to see nothing but the death in his face. A
thought came to her like a flame lit on a sudden, and springing high the
instant the match struck the fuel it leaped from. It was a thought so
daring and so strange that even she gasped once, being appalled, and her
hands, stealing to her brow, clutched at the hair that grew there,
feeling it seem to rise and stand erect.

"Is it madness to so dare?" she said hoarsely, and for an instant,
shuddering, hid her eyes, but then uncovered and showed them burning.
"Nay! not as I will dare it," she said, "for it will make me steel. You
fell well," she said to the stone-faced thing, "and as you lie there,
seem to tell me what to do, in your own despite. You would not have so
helped me had you known. Now 'tis 'twixt Fate and I--a human thing--who
is but a hunted woman."