"Stop that, stop that, I say!" His voice was hoarse, and his face was livid with rage.
"I will not stop," she cried. "I want to be a good woman—I will be a good woman. That child whom I laughed at has seen a thousand times farther into the heart of truth than I, and she is happy, happy in her innocence, in her spotless purity, and in her faith in God. And I promised her I would be a new woman, live a new life."
"You cannot, you dare not," cried the Count.
"But I will. I will leave the old bad past behind me."
"And I will dog your every footstep. I will make such madness impossible."
"But you cannot. Good is stronger than evil. God is Almighty."
"I hold you, body and soul, remember that."
The woman seemed possessed of a new power, and she turned to the Count with a look of triumph in her eyes.
"Go," she cried, "in the name of that Christ who was the joy of my mother's life, and who died that I might live—I bid you go. From to-night I cease to be your slave."
The Count lifted his hand as if to strike her, but she stood before him fearless.