"Yes! It is mine," she said, her voice broken in its tumult of ecstasy—"it is mine—all mine. It is no charity, no gift to me. The chain was worth it, and I would only take what it was worth. A little gold, you said; and now you can make the Barabbas live forever upon canvas, and compel men to say that it is great."
As the impetuous, tremulous words broke from her, she drew the green leaf with the coins in it from her bosom, and thrust it into his hand, eager, exultant, laughing, weeping, all the silence and the control of her nature swept away in the flood of this immeasurable joy possessing her.
The touch of the glittering pieces against his hands stung him to comprehension; his face flushed over all its pallor; he thrust it away with a gesture of abhorrence and rejection.
"Money!" he muttered. "What money?—yours?"
"Yes, mine entirely; mine indeed!" she answered, with a sweet, glad ring of victory in her rejoicing voice. "It is true, quite true. They were the chains of sequins that Phratos gave me when I used to dance to his music in the mountains; and I have sold them. 'A little gold,' you said; 'and the Barabbas can live forever.' Why do you look so? It is all mine; all yours——"
In the last words her voice lost all its proud exultation, and sank low, with a dull startled wonder in it.
Why did he look so?
His gesture of refusal she had not noticed. But the language his glance spoke was one plain to her. It terrified her, amazed her, struck her chill and dumb.
In it there were disgust, anger, loathing,—even horror; and yet there was in it also an unwonted softness, which in a woman's would have shown itself by a rush of sudden tears.
"What do you think that I have done?" she murmured under her breath. "The gold is mine—mine honestly. I have not stolen it, nor begged it. I got it as I say. Why will you not take it? Why do you look at me so?"