"Don't come near me, or I will cry out; I will call for help, and dishonor you, villain!" exclaimed Diane, in an ecstasy of terror.
"Cry out and call for help as much as you choose; it's all the same to me," Lord Wentworth rejoined with ominous tranquillity. "The house is deserted, and so are the streets; no one will answer your cries for at least an hour. Look! I have not even taken the trouble to close the doors and windows, so sure am I that no one will come in less than an hour."
"But they will at the end of that time," Diane retorted; "and then I will accuse and denounce you, and my deliverers will kill you."
"No," said Lord Wentworth, coldly, "for it is I who will kill myself. Do you imagine that I have any desire to survive the fall of Calais? In an hour I shall kill myself; I have made up my mind beyond recall. But before that I choose to give full play to my passion, and to satisfy my vengeance and my love in this last supreme hour. Come, my fair one, your resistance and your contempt are out of season now,—for I no longer beg, but command; I no longer implore, but demand."
"And I die!" cried Diane, drawing a knife from her bosom.
Before she had time to strike, Lord Wentworth sprang toward her, seized her weak little hands in his powerful ones, tore the knife from her grasp, and threw it far away.
"Not yet!" he cried, with a smile of terrible import; "I do not choose, Madame, that you should turn your hand against yourself yet. Afterward you may do as you choose; and if you prefer to die with me rather than live with him, you will be quite at liberty to do so. But this last hour,—for there is only an hour left now,—this last hour of your life belongs to me; I have but this hour in which to make amends to myself for the eternity of hell to come hereafter; so be very sure that I will not renounce my right."
He attempted to lay hold of her. Thereupon fainting, and feeling that her strength was forsaking her, she threw herself at his feet.
"Mercy, my Lord!" she cried, "mercy, I ask mercy and forgiveness on my knees! By the memory of your mother, remember that you are a gentleman."
"A gentleman!" retorted Lord Wentworth, shaking his head; "yes, I was a gentleman, and I so bore myself, I think, so long as I triumphed and hoped,—yes, so long as I lived. But now I am no longer a gentleman; I am simply a man,—a man who is about to die, and proposes first to be revenged."