For certain. Slowly, word by word, _she_ reads
Aloud that license--or that warrant, say.

"'_One against two--and two that urge their odds
To uttermost--I needs must try resource!
Madam, I laid me prostrate, bade you spurn
Body and soul: you spurned and safely spurned
So you had spared me the superfluous taunt
"Prostration means no power to stand erect,
Stand, trampling on who trampled--prostrate now!"
So, with my other fool-foe: I was fain
Let the boy touch me with the buttoned foil,
And him the infection gains, he too must needs
Catch up the butcher's cleaver. Be it so!
Since play turns earnest, here's my serious fence.
He loves you; he demands your love: both know
What love means in my language. Love him then!
Pursuant to a pact, love pays my debt:
Therefore, deliver me from him, thereby
Likewise delivering from me yourself!
For, hesitate--much more, refuse consent--
I tell the whole truth to your husband. Flat
Cards lie on table, in our gamester-phrase!
Consent--you stop my mouth, the only way._'

"I did well, trusting instinct: knew your hand
Had never joined with his in fellowship
Over this pact of infamy. You known--
As he was known through every nerve of me.
Therefore I '_stopped his mouth the only way_'
But _my_ way! none was left for you, my friend--
The loyal--near, the loved one! No--no--no!
Threaten? Chastise? The coward would but quail.
Conquer who can, the cunning of the snake!
Stamp out his slimy strength from tail to head,
And still you leave vibration of the tongue.
His malice had redoubled--not on me
Who, myself, choose my own refining fire--
But on poor unsuspicious innocence;
And,--victim,--to turn executioner
Also--that feat effected, forky tongue
Had done indeed its office! One snake's 'mouth'
Thus '_open_'--how could mortal '_stop it_'?

"So!"
A tiger-flash--yell, spring, and scream: halloo!
Death's out and on him, has and holds him--ugh!
But _ne trucidet coram populo
Juvenis senem_! Right the Horatian rule!
There, see how soon a quiet comes to pass!

The youth is somehow by the lady's side.
His right-hand grasps her right-hand once again.
Both gaze on the dead body. Hers the word.
"And that was good but useless. Had I lived
The d