“Even if he deserved death?” she repeated, and sprang up, as if the phrase had touched her. “You make yourself the judge, you do, of when a man 'deserves' to lose his wealth. Come, what is your idea of when he deserves to die?” Up and down the room she swept; yet still watchful. And the emotion which she had so long suppressed burst out into a poisonous lovely bloom that suffused her being with an awful beauty. “When does he deserve to die?” she repeated. “Listen to me. I knew a woman once--no matter where--no matter when--who was sold--sold! I say--by the sordid devil she called her father, to the veriest beast that ever trod this earth. Her beauty--for she had beauty--her wit--for wit she had--became this husband's chattels before she turned her twentieth year. She would never have loved him, but she would have been faithful to him--she was faithful to him, in fact, in spite of all his drunkenness and bestiality--and abuse! It was not neglect alone that she had to complain of--she had never looked for understanding or sympathy. But she had not looked for abuse. Abuse, I say, and worse than abuse. Before she had been married a year she knew what it was, not only to feel the weight of a heavy hand and to hide the bruises from her maid, but to see other women brought into her very house. Pah!--hate? She hated him? Hate is not the word. She became a live coal. But she never cried out; she found strength to smile at him even when he beat her; she was proud enough for that. It pleased him, in his hellish humor, and because she was made to shine, to cage her in a country house, and there to taunt her that although she was sold to him she got little of what money may buy. And still she smiled at him, and still her hatred grew through all the weeks and months until it filled her whole being. And then--love came. For God has ordained that love may enter even Hell. Love, I say; and she loved this lover of hers with a passion that was measured only by the degree in which she hated her husband. And she would have left with him; but on the very night they would have flown together her lord and master-----” She said the words with an indescribable spluttering sneer, sidewise from her mouth. It is so a lioness may snarl and spit before she leaps. “Her--lord and master--found it out, and waited up to catch them; and coming upon her alone, taunted her. Taunted her, and struck her----” “Look!” she cried, and tore the diamonds from her breast, and rent the laces, and wrenched the fastenings apart. A new red weal that seemed to throb and pulse with her respiration stood out from the whiteness of her bosom. “Tell me,” she whispered hoarsely, “would it have been murder if she had killed that man? Which were the more courageous thing--to kill him, or to step back into her living hell? If she had killed him, would she have regretted it?”