“Ay, again! for the third and last time since your sin, I stand before you, Baron Elverton!” replied the stranger.
“In the name of Heaven, what is your will with me?”
“To sum up—just judge!”
“I know not what you mean beyond this, that it must be some new diabolism!”
“Do you know who you have condemned to death to-day?”
“No, beyond the fact that she was an adventuress with a half dozen aliases, a murderess, who merited breaking upon the wheel rather than any milder form of death!”
“Ah, she was very wicked, was she not?”
“A double-dyed, diabolical traitor to destroy her benefactors, and without even any apparent motive for the deed!”
“But perhaps she could not help it. Treachery and ingratitude were hereditary with her, were in her blood, were given to her at her birth.”
“What dark meaning now lurks under your words?”