"No," she answers, in an enraged snarl, like an angry canine.
Lady Vera continues, calmly:
"Pray understand me. I have no wish to wage further warfare upon you. With the fulfillment of my oath of vengeance my feud against you ended. I despise your hatred and your attempt to injure me, and I have no desire to punish you more than I have already done in obedience to my oath of vengeance. If there is anything I can do for you, speak."
Mrs. Cleveland looks wonderingly at the beautiful, calm, white face of the girl as she stands waiting for her answer.
"Do you mean that you will not prosecute me for this attempt on your life? That you will suffer me to go free?" she inquires in a doubtful tone, in which hope faintly struggles.
"Yes, I mean that, if you wish it—do you?" Vera asks, still quietly.
"Yes, but I hate to take a favor from you," the woman answers, sullenly.
"Do not take it as a favor. Consider that I am heaping coals of fire upon your head," Lady Vera answers, with a slight, cold laugh. "I choose to take my revenge that way. Sir Harry, will you please loose her bonds?"
The baronet looks his disapproval.
"Lady Vera, pray do not give way to such a Quixotic impulse," he urges. "If you do, this woman will live to make you regret it. You owe her no forbearance. I say let her suffer the penalty of the law for her attempted crime."