"Oh! Radonic, is it you? How you frightened me! I did not recognise you. But how is it that you have come back? and this change in——"
"How is it that you are in my house at this hour of the night?" said he, laying his hands on him.
"I—I," quoth Vranic, gasping, "I came to see if everything was quiet, as I promised, and seeing your door open——"
"That is why you call Milena your love."
"Did I? You are mistaken, Radonic—though perhaps I did; but then it was only to see if she were expecting someone; you know women are light——"
"You liar, you villain, you devil!" And Radonic, clutching him by his shoulders, shook him.
"Believe me! I swear by my soul! I swear by the holy Virgin, whose medals—blessed by the Church—I wear round my neck. May I be struck down dead if what I say is not true!"
"Liar, forswearer, wretch!" hissed out Radonic, as he spat in
Vranic's face.
"I never meant to wrong you," replied Vranic, blubbering. "I came here as a friend—I told you I would; may all the saints together blind me if what I say be not true."
But the husband, ever more exasperated, clutched his false friend by the throat, and as he spouted out all his wrath, he kept gripping him tighter and ever tighter. In his passion his convulsively clenched fingers were like the claws of a bird of prey.