s unspilled to his mouth again.

"The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed,
to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his
own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the
lash. He was hardly dead by sundown."

"It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was
her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little
foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities.

The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones.

"He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted
according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was
nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take
it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut
short in agony, and another blasted utterly.

"Mohun knew the count's family. Some of them, maiden aunts I suppose,
were devotees of the first order: these came in person, or sent their
pet priests, to argue with him on his unchristian habits of sullen
solitude. The men of his old set came too, to laugh him out of the
horrors. Saint and sinner got the same answer--a shake of the head, a
curse, a threat if he were not left alone, growled out between deep
draughts of strong Moldavian wine. They went, and were wise; for his
pistols lay always beside him--in case his servants offended him, or if
he should take a sudden fancy to suicide--and the shaking finger could
have pulled a trigger still.

"After a little he left Vienna, shut himself up in his castle, and would
see no one.

"In England they would have tried at the '_de lunatico_' statute; but
his next of kin left him in peace, biding their time as patiently as
they could. They had not to wait long; in four years a good constitution
broke up, suddenly at last, and the count exchanged stupor for a sleep
with his fathers, without benefit of clergy. Perhaps they would not have
given him absolution, for he died certainly not in charity with all
men."

"I don't know," Mrs. Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can
not argue with you; but I am sure it was very wrong."

I struck in to the meek little woman's rescue.

"That's right, Mrs. Bellasys, don't let him put you down with the high
hand; it's always his way when truth is against him; but I never knew
him break down a stubborn fact yet."

Guy turned upon me directly.

"Frank, I have often