Low though the words were, they reached and moved her in her dim blind weakness. She stretched out her hand, and touched his bowed head.
'No, no—not that. He is my children's father. He must be sacred; give me your word, Egon, there shall be no bloodshed between him and you.'
'I am your next friend,' he said, with intense appeal in his voice. 'You are insulted and dishonoured—your race is affronted and stained—who should avenge that if not I, your kinsman? There is no male of your house. It falls to me.'
All the manhood and knighthood in him were athirst for the life of the impostor who had dishonoured what he adored.
'Promise me,' she said again.
'Your brothers are dead,' he muttered. 'I may well stand in their place. Their swords would have found him out ere he were an hour older.'
She raised herself with a supreme effort, and through the pallor and misery of her face there came a momentary flash of anger, a momentary flash of the old spirit of command.
'My brothers are dead, and I forbid any other to meddle with my life. If anyone slew him it would be I—I—in my own right.'
Her voice had been for the instant stern and sustained, but physical faintness overcame her; her lips grew grey, and the darkness of great weakness came before her sight.
'I forbid you! I forbid you!' she said, as her breath failed her.