onged you or any in all
this world. You have heard that task which the Duke hath laid on me,
because it is my misfortune to be my father's son--I must take away my
love's sweet life, or, if I do not--" I could proceed no further for the
horror which rose in my heart.

"I know it," she said, calmly; "my father hath told me all."

"Then," cried I, "if the power lie with you, as you hope for mercy to
your own soul, be merciful! Save the maiden Helene from the death of
shame, and me from becoming her murderer!"

"Ah," she answered, with delicatest meditative inflection, "this is
indeed sweet. The mighty is fallen indeed. The proud one is suppliant
now. The knee is bent that would not bend. Hearken, you and your puling
babe, to the Princess Ysolinde! Were your lives in that glass, to save or
to destroy--her life and your suffering--to make or to break, I would
fling them to destruction, even as I cast this cup into the darkness!"

And as she spoke the wreathed beaker of Venice glass sped out of the
window and crashed on the pavement without.

"Thus would I end your lives," she said, "for the shame that you two put
upon me in the day of my weakness."

"Lady," I cried, eagerly, "you do yourself a wrong! Your heart is better
than your word. Do this deed of mercy, I beseech you, if so be you can.
And my life is yours forever!"

"Your life is mine, you say," cried she; "aye, and that means what?
The wind that cries about the house. Your life is _mine_--it is
a lie. Your life and love both are that chit's for whom you have
despised--rejected--ME!"

And I grant that at that moment she looked noble enough in her anger as
she stood discharging her words at me with hissing directness, like bolts
shot twanging from the steel cross-bow.

"And, lest you should think that I have not the power to save you, I will
tell you this--when you shall see the neck bared for the blade of the Red
Axe, the fine tresses you love, that your eyes look upon with desire, all
ruthlessly cut away by the shears of your assistants--ah, I know you will
remember then that I, Ysolinde, whom you refused and slighted, had the
power in her hand to deliver you both with a word, according to the
immaculate laws of the Wolfmark. Aye, and more--power to raise you both
to a pinnacle of bliss such as you can hardly conceive. In that hour,
when you see me look down upon your anguish, you will know that I can
speak the word. You will watch my lips till the axe fal