'Listen to me,' said he, with calm yet sad ferocity in his tone and eyes; 'I am not the first, among many, whom your beauty and your wiles have fooled and beguiled--for few women have had such Circe-like power as you--but I shall be the last on whose face you will look.' 'What do you mean?' she asked, in a low and agitated voice. 'That you will soon learn--come here,' he continued, hoarsely; 'here--and look down,' he added, dragging her to the giddy verge of the beetling cliff, at the base of which, spread out like a map, was the woody landscape stretching away towards Katadar, with the Morava winding through it like a silver snake. 'Have pity, Guebhard!' exclaimed Margarita, shrinking back, while a mortal terror seized her now, for the expression of his eyes froze her heart. 'Pity--it is too late--too late!' he replied, yet with something like a sob in his throat. 'Forgiveness is saint-like, Guebhard,' she urged piteously. 'But I am no saint, Margarita--I am only a humble mortal.' 'Mortal or not--man or devil--why have I to seek forgiveness of _you_?' she exclaimed, as a gust of indignation and pride came to her aid, and she strove to break away from him; but finding that all her efforts were vain, and that he was too strong for her, she shrieked out wildly, 'Cecil! Cecil!' The name seemed to madden him. Stung to frenzy, he drew a pistol from his belt; but replaced it, and grasped his yataghan; that, too, he declined to use, lest it might elicit a shriek again and bring succour, for with all his frenzy, there was a method in his madness, and his next thought was--strangulation! The proud and lovely neck she would not have permitted him to kiss was now to feel the tiger-like clutch of his long, lean and felon fingers, as they closed round her snow-white throat. 'Mercy, Guebhard--mercy!' she gasped; 'I am too young--too young--perhaps too wicked--to die!' Fate was upon her, and Guebhard was no longer a reasoning being. There were tears in her starting and bloodshot eyes, and clamorous fury gathered in Guebhard's heart, while his infernal gripe grew closer; her arms fell powerless by her side--he felt the tumultuous heavings of her bosom against his own. Sense had not left her; she could not doubt the desperate character of his attack, and though she ceased to struggle, her eyes spoke, and with such a language that Guebhard dared not look on them again--they seemed so mournfully to implore his mercy--but his heart, blazing with the insensate hate that springs from baffled love, knew none! In vain; his gripe grew tighter upon her delicate throat, that was all symmetry and whiteness: a terrible spasm convulsed her frame; then he knew that all was over, that she was dead in his hands, and daring no more to look upon her, he flung her over the awful cliff close by; and that he might not hear the sound, if any, that came from below, he sank on his knees, and covered his ears with his hot tremulous hands. So perished Margarita!