She put her strong hand forth and thrust him--he was already
stiffening--backward from the shoulder, there being no shrinking on her
face as she felt his flesh yield beneath her touch, for she had passed
the barrier lying between that which is mere life and that which is
pitiless hell, and could feel naught that was human. A poor wild beast
at bay, pressed on all sides by dogs, by huntsmen, by resistless weapons,
by Nature's pitiless self--glaring with bloodshot eyes, panting, with
fangs bared in the savagery of its unfriended agony--might feel thus.
'Tis but a hunted beast; but 'tis alone, and faces so the terror and
anguish of death.

The thing gazing with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put
forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it
lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes
seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison;
she thrust it farther backward still, and letting the draperies fall,
steadily and with care so rearranged them that all was safe and hid from
sight.

"Until to-night," she said, "You will lie well there. And then--and
then--"

She picked up the long silken lock of hair which lay like a serpent at
her feet, and threw it into the fire, watching it burn, as all hair
burns, with slow hissing, and she watched it till 'twas gone.

Then she stood with her hands pressed upon her eyeballs and her brow, her
thoughts moving in great leaps. Although it reeled, the brain which had
worked for her ever, worked clear and strong, setting before her what was
impending, arguing her case, showing her where dangers would arise, how