e--death on the
vivisection-table. Will you, whatever the danger--_can_ you, give up
to such a fate, to such hands, one whom your hand has caressed, whose
head has rested on your heart?"

"It needs not that, Eveena," I answered; "enough that she is woman. I
would face that death myself rather than, for whatever crime, send a
woman, above all a young girl, to such an end. I would rather by far
slay my worst enemy with my own hand than consign him to a death of
torture. But, more than that, my conscience would not permit me to
call on the law to punish a household treason, where household
authority is so strong and so arbitrary as here. Assassination is the
weapon of the oppressed and helpless; and it is not for me so to be
judge in my own cause as to pronounce that Eive has had no
provocation."

"Shame upon her!" said Eveena indignantly. "No one under your roof
ever had or could have reason to raise a hand, I do not say against
your life, but to give you a moment's pain. I do not ask, I do not
wish you to spare her; only I am glad to think you will deal with her
yourself--remember she has herself removed all limit to your
power--and not by the shameless and merciless hands to which the law
would give her."

We returned to Eveena's chamber. The scene that followed I cannot bear
to recall. Enough that Eive knew as well as Eveena the law she had
broken and the penalty she had incurred; and, petted darling as she
had been, she utterly lacked all faith in the tenderness she had known
so well, or even in the mercy to which Eveena had confidently
appealed. Understanding at last that she was safe from the law, the
expression of her gratitude was as vehement as her terror had been
intense. But the new phase of passion was not the less repugnant. Not
that there was anything strange in the violent revulsion of feeling.
Born and trained among a race who fear to forgive, Eive was familiar
by report at least with the merciless vengeance of cowards. Whatever
they might have done later, few would have promised mercy in the very
moment of escape to an ordinary assassin; and if Eive understood any
aspect of my character, that she could best appreciate was the
outraged tenderness which forbade me to look on hers as ordinary
guilt. Acutely sensitive to pain and fear, she had both known the
better to what terror might prompt the injured, and was the more
appalled by the prospect. Her eagerness to accept by anticipation
whatever degradat