He ceased abruptly and with passion, making a movement as though to fling her from him,--but she clung to his arm,--clung with all the pertinacity of the loathly insect he had taken from the bosom of the dead Egyptian woman and made a toy of to amuse his leisure! And I, looking on and listening, honoured him for his plain speaking, for his courage in telling this shameless creature what she was in the opinion of an honest man, without glozing over her outrageous conduct for the sake of civility or social observance. My friend,--my more than friend! He was true,--he was loyal--he had neither desire nor intent to betray or dishonour me. My heart swelled with gratitude to him, and also with a curious sense of feeble self-pity,--compassionating myself intensely, I could have sobbed aloud in nervous fury and pain, had not my desire to hear more, repressed my personal excitement and emotion. I watched my wife wonderingly--what had become of her pride that she still knelt before the man who had taunted her with such words as should have been beyond all endurance? "Lucio! ... Lucio!" she whispered, and her whisper sounded through the long gallery like the hiss of a snake--"Say what you will--say all you will of me,--you can say nothing that is not true. I am vile--I own it. But is it of much avail to be virtuous? What pleasure comes from goodness?--what gratification from self-denial? There is no God to care! A few years, and we all die, and are forgotten even by those who loved us,--why should we lose such joys as we may have for the mere asking? Surely it is not difficult to love even me for an hour?--am I not fair to look upon?--and is all this beauty of my face and form worthless in your sight, and you no more than man? Murder me as you may with all the cruelty of cruel words, I care nothing!--I love you--love you!"--and in a perfect passion of self-abandonment she sprang to her feet, tossing back her rich hair over her shoulders, and stood erect, a very bacchante of wild loveliness--"Look at me! You shall not,--you dare not spurn such a love as mine!" Dead silence followed her outburst,--and I stared in fascinated awe at Lucio as he turned more fully round and confronted her. The expression of his countenance struck me then as quite unearthly,--his beautiful broad brows were knitted in a darkling line of menace,--his eyes literally blazed with scorn, and yet he laughed,--a low laugh, resonant with satire.