“I am sorry that I cannot believe you,” said Montalvo, “so”—and he stretched out his hand towards a bell upon the table. “Stop,” she said; “for your own sake stop. Man, will you really commit this awful, this useless crime? Think of the reckoning that must be paid here and hereafter; think of me, the woman you dishonoured, standing before the Judgment Seat of God, and bearing witness against your naked, shivering soul. Think of him, the good and harmless man whom you are about cruelly to butcher, crying in the ear of Christ, ‘Look upon Juan de Montalvo, my pitiless murderer——‘” “Silence,” shouted Montalvo, yet shrinking back against the wall as though to avoid a sword-thrust. “Silence, you ill-omened witch, with your talk of God and judgment. It is too late, I tell you, it is too late; my hands are too red with blood, my heart is too black with sin, upon the tablets of my mind is written too long a record. What more can this one crime matter, and—do you understand?—I must have money, money to buy my pleasures, money to make my last years happy, and my deathbed soft. I have suffered enough, I have toiled enough, and I will win wealth and peace who am now once more a beggar. Yes, had you twenty husbands, I would crush the life out of all of them inch by inch to win the gold that I desire.” As he spoke and the passions in him broke through their crust of cunning and reserve, his face changed. Now Lysbeth, watching for some sign of pity, knew that hope was dead, for his countenance was as it had been on that day six-and-twenty years ago, when she sat at his side while the great race was run. There was the same starting eyeball, the same shining fangs appeared between the curled lips, and above them the moustachios, now grown grey, touched the high cheekbones. It was as in the fable of the weremen, who, at a magic sign or word, put off their human aspect and become beasts. So it had chanced to the spirit of Montalvo, shining through his flesh like some baleful marsh-light through the mist. It was a thing which God had forgotten, a thing that had burst the kindly mould of its humanity, and wrapt itself in the robe and mask of such a wolf as might raven about the cliffs of hell. Only there was fear on the face of the wolf, that inhuman face which, this side of the grave, she was yet destined to see once more. The fit passed, and Montalvo sank down gasping, while even in her woe and agony Lysbeth shuddered at this naked vision of a Satan-haunted soul. “I have one more thing to ask,” she said. “Since my husband must die, suffer that I die with him. Will you refuse this also, and cause the cup of your crimes to flow over, and the last angel of God’s mercy to flee away?”