“Wanda!” I implored, “mercy!”
She began to laugh. I buried my face in her pillows. Pain had loosened the floodgates of my tears and I let them flow.
For a long time silence reigned, then Wanda slowly raised herself.
“You bore me,” she began.
“Wanda!”
“I am tired, let me go to sleep.”
“Mercy,” I implored. “Do not drive me away. No man, no one, will love you as I do.”
“Let me go to sleep,”—she turned her back to me again.
I leaped up, and snatched the poinard, which hung beside her bed, from its sheath, and placed its point against my breast.
“I shall kill myself here before your eyes,” I murmured dully.