“Ah!”
“Once I served under him, honored him above all men; now I desire nothing else on earth but to bow his head in the dust. He is a great prince, beyond my reach, but I have sought and found a better means of striking at him. For this purpose, my daughter, I need your aid.”
“You mean—” she began.
“This Prince of Mori is the man. Now you understand. His heart, his whole life, is wrapped up in his son. But yesterday, my daughter, I caught that son in the trap which I set through you. To-morrow he pays the penalty of the sins of his father.”
Wistaria tottered to her feet. Then she fell on her knees and crept upon them to her father.
“Father, dear, my father, I beg, I implore you to show mercy.”
“For whom do you ask mercy, my lady?” asked the father.
“For the innocent—this young Prince of Mori.”
“You—you ask mercy for this prince!—you, the daughter of a murdered woman!” In an instant she was sitting up stiff and rigid.
“My lord,” she said, “I am, indeed, too insignificant and unworthy to be thy daughter, but for one small moment I did forget our wrongs and fain would have spared my soul the sacrifice of innocent blood.”