“She cannot help the cause,” he said. “She will only be in the way. What is her use in this pass?” “Patty,” I said, turning on the child, “M. Pissani does not want you. You can go back.” She looked at me, the helpless fool. Her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. But Pissani by that was smiling. “I do not want you, child, _I_?” he said, in a sick voice, and held out his hands fondly to her across the table. “Ah, but we know better the truth of our hearts! When the battle is won, then, O gentle my love, that betakest thyself to love as the lark to heaven, come to me, as you promised! But not now--not now, when the storm is in the air, and this so dear shrine of my hopes might be struck and violated. You have not changed, you could not change: it is enough, I have seen you. Come now with me, Pattia, and I will take you back to the boat, to my friends, that they may see you secured in Rome until I can send to you and say, ‘It is time, most dear wife, it is time. Return to me, and give thyself to be the mother of patriots!’” She moved, and gave a little sob. Her response was not to him but to me--to the stunned questioning of my eyes. She had no wit but to utter her whole self-condemnation in it. “Diana! I did not know! I have not been untrue to you.” I struck her on the mouth, and she staggered back, with that red lie printed on it for the delectation of her paramour. She clutched at the table, reeled, and sank down beside it moaning. It was too much. My fury had flashed to an explosion in that wicked falsehood. Pissani, with a sudden and terrible cry at the sight of his mistress’s disgrace, drew a knife from his hip, and leapt like a goat across the table. Stumbling as he alighted, she caught him frantic round the knees, and held him raging and snarling while he stabbed at the air in his frenzy. I stood fallen back a little, white and scornful, but with not a thrill of fear at my heart; and, so standing, saw how, in the thick blindness of his rage, he was yet tender of her in his struggles to free himself. And then in a moment he had fallen upon his knees, the blade yet in his hand, and was kissing and caressing her, moaning inarticulate love into her ear. She tried feebly to repulse him; to drag herself away and towards me. I had always known that she was of the fools who caress the hands that scourge them. But I sprang back, loathing her neighbourhood. “Don’t come near me,” I cried. He had kissed the blood from her mouth to his own. He struck the spot there with a furious hand, as he turned on me. “By this,” he said, “your death or mine!” I laughed scornfully. “So brutes revenge themselves on the innocence they have despoiled!” “It is a lie!” he raged; and, on the word, put a fierce arm about his _wife_. “Believe it is a lie, thou!” But she was still struggling to reach me.