"No!"
"Thou wilt swear it?"
"I say it."
"'Tis well, woman! Thou shalt die!"
As he spoke he drew from his breast his hunting knife and sprang upon her. She detected the momentary lighting up of his eye ere he made the spring, and alertly avoided the blow by leaping through the door: he fell forward, and the blade shivered against the stone sides of the tower.
With a laugh of derision she fled along the passage pursued by him. Her voice and also her footsteps ceased as he reached the steps leading upward from the tomb, and, without any sound to guide him, he groped his way along the gallery. At length he approached the light; but, although he could see through the door out into the forest, she was nowhere visible! After vainly searching every part of the ruin, he abandoned the attempt, remounted his horse, and spurred towards Castle More.
CHAPTER V.
"Oh God! how changed my nature with all this!
I, that had been all love and tenderness—
The truest and most gentle heart till now
That ever beat—grew suddenly a devil!"
Lord Ivan and his Daughter.