A cry of savage wrath checked her. Stretching one huge, bony hand,
as if to close her lips, trembling with rage and pain, livid and
convulsed in every feature of his face, Prince Alexis reversed the
whip in his right hand, and weighed its thick, heavy butt for one
crashing, fatal blow. Life and death were evenly balanced. For an
instant the Princess became deadly pale, and a sickening fear shot
through her heart. She could not understand the effect of her
words: her mind was paralyzed, and what followed came without her
conscious volition.

Not retreating a step, not removing her eyes from the terrible
picture before her, she suddenly opened her lips and sang. Her
voice of exquisite purity, power, and sweetness, filled the old
hall and overflowed it, throbbing in scarcely weakened vibrations
through court-yard and castle. The melody was a prayer--the cry of
a tortured heart for pardon and repose; and she sang it with almost
supernatural expression. Every sound in the castle was hushed: the
serfs outside knelt and uncovered their heads.

The Princess could never afterwards describe, or more than dimly
recall, the exaltation of that moment. She sang in an inspired
trance: from the utterance of the first note the horror of the
imminent fate sank out of sight. Her eyes were fixed upon the
convulsed face, but she beheld it not: all the concentrated forces
of her life flowed into the music. She remembered, however, that
Prince Alexis looked alternately from her face to the portrait of
his wife; that he at last shuddered and grew pale; and that, when
with the closing note her own strength suddenly dissolved, he
groaned and fell upon the floor.