He set down his empty glass and fumbled in his pocket for a paper which he handed her to read.
"It's always well to know what you're signing," he said, and he watched her face as her eyes followed the lines, with the intent yet impersonal scrutiny of a specialist studying his case.
She looked, as she read, like a corpse that has been propped to a sitting position, with nostrils sunken and lips of Parian marble. Her hand shook with a violence which recalled her to herself, and when she raised her eyes they looked as though the iris itself had faded. The Dago Duke seemed absorbed in the curious effect.
He could hear the dryness of her mouth when she asked at last—
"You expect me—to put my name—to this?"
He inclined his head.
"It is—impossible!"
He replied evenly:
"It is necessary."
"You are asking me to sign my own death warrant."