no one escapes. Oh! Do not you kill him. Let me."

Breathlessly she pleaded, holding him by the feet. He spurned her
with contempt.

"Peace, fool! He is for none other than me. It is an old score.
Ah, yes," he continued between his teeth, "it is an old score.
It will be sweet to feel him slowly die with my fingers in
his throat."

"But they will take you," cried the woman.

"Bah! They could not hold me in Siberia, and think you they can in
this land? But the children," he mused. "Rosenblatt away." With a
sudden resolve he turned to the woman. "Woman," he said, in a voice
stern and low, "could you--"

She threw herself once more at his feet in a passion of entreaty.
"Oh, my lord! Let me live for them, for them--and--for you!"

"For me?" he said coldly. "No. You have dishonoured my name.
You are wife of mine no longer. Do you hear this?"

"Yes, yes," she panted, "I hear. I know. I ask nothing for myself.
But the children, your children. I would live for them, would die
for them!"

He turned from her and gazed through the window, pondering. That
she would be faithful to the children he well knew. That she would
gladly die for him, he was equally certain. With Rosenblatt