"You are ill, Jenny," he said: "you had best return to the house.
Another time"--

"Stop!" she cried hoarsely. "Move from this spot, and I'll call for
help! Attempt to leave me now, and I'll proclaim you the assassin that
you are!"

"It was a fair fight," he said doggedly.

"Was it a fair fight to creep behind an unarmed and unsuspecting man?
Was it a fair fight to try to throw suspicion on some one else? Was it a
fair fight to deceive me? Liar and coward that you are!"

He made a stealthy step toward her with evil eyes, and a wickeder hand
that crept within his breast. She saw the motion; but it only stung her
to newer fury.

"Strike!" she said with blazing eyes, throwing her hands open before
him. "Strike! Are you afraid of the woman who dares you? Or do you keep
your knife for the backs of unsuspecting men? Strike, I tell you!
No? Look, then!" With a sudden movement, she tore from her head and
shoulders the thick lace shawl that had concealed her figure, and stood
before him. "Look!" she cried passionately, pointing to the bosom and
shoulders of her white dress, darkly streaked with faded stains and
ominous discoloration,--"look! This is the dress I wore that morning
when I found him lying here,--HERE,--bleeding from your cowardly knife.
Look! Do you see? This is his blood,--my darling boy's blood!--one drop
of which, dead and faded as it is, is more precious to me than the whole
living pulse of any other man. Look! I come to you to-night, christened
with his blood, and dare you to strike,--dare you to strike him again