“Yet a little, yet a little, you devil from hell! I shall not die in peace, I shall not go to Holy Confession, until I have seen you driven with cudgels out of Lipka!—Oh, get you away to the soldiers, you drab, you swinish jade! Your place is with them!” She was gone, and over the cabin there came a silence like that of the grave. Dominikova shook with a dumb passion of weeping; Magda rocked her little one; Hanka, plunged in torturing thought, looked into the fire; and Yagna, though she still had on her face the same hardened reckless expression, the same wicked smile, had turned as white as a sheet. Those last words had cut deep into her soul; she felt stabbed as though by a hundred knives, each stab streaming with her life-blood: an inhuman torment that was impelling her to shriek out at the top of her voice, or even dash her brains out against the wall. But she controlled herself, pulled her mother by the sleeve, and said in an agonized whisper: “Mother, come away. Let’s flee this place. And quickly!” “Right; for I am broken and shattered. But you must return and watch over what is yours.” “I will not stay here! I so loathe the place that to stay is beyond me.—Why did I ever darken these doors? Better have broken a limb than have ever come here!” “Were you, then, so evilly dealt with?” Hanka asked quietly. “Worse than a chained-up dog! Even in hell there must be less pain than I have suffered here!” “Strange, then, that you could bear it so long: no one imprisoned you here. You were free as air to go!” “So I will. And may the plague choke you, for being—what you are!” “Curse not, or I may cast my own wrongs in your teeth!” “Why are ye all—as many as dwell in Lipka—all of you against me?” “Live rightly: none will say one word of bitterness to you!” “Peace, Yagna, peace; Hanka bears you no malice!” “Let her too howl with the rest. Aye, let her! As dogs, dirt to me is all their howling. And what have I done to them? Whom have I robbed or slain?” “What have ye done? Have you the front to ask?” Hanka exclaimed, in stupefaction, standing up opposite her. “Do not drive me too far, or I may speak!” “Speak, prithee! I dare you to speak! What do I care for you?” Yagna vociferated, now in a towering passion, that spread within her like a conflagration; and she was ready to do anything—even the very worst that offered. The tears had instantly sprung to Hanka’s eyes at the remembrance of Antek’s infidelity, that rose up before her with a pang so acute that she could hardly stammer out: “What have ye done with him—with my husband, say? Ye never would let him be, but followed him everywhere, like the rampant piece of lust ye are!”... Her breath failed her, and she broke into sobs.