This time she tried to speak, but no sound came. Her power of motion, too, was in abeyance. He moved three deliberate steps nearer. As though the air were glass, and she repelled by its material force, she went backward the answering distance. Her left hand, clutching behind her, found something hard and cold, and fastened to it eagerly. It was the fin of a bronze dragon in full relief, twining upward, about the trunk of a tall lantern. "Yes, go," she whispered. "Do not speak more words. Go!"
Pierre took another stride. She cowered back bodily into the writhing folds.
"For the love of God!" she panted.
"What if one has ceased to love God?"
"In mercy then—in pity—in human pity—go!"
Pierre laughed. "You enjoin pity, Madame Haganè? How quaint!"
"I am more deeply hurted now than you; but never more must I be weak. I am a wife. I shall serve my native country!"
"Does treachery and faithlessness ever serve? You delude yourself. If Haganè is to be your strength, you will fail,—for either Haganè or I must die. I live now only to revenge myself upon him!"
The emptiness of the boast, the impotence of the suffering boy to wreak the harm he wished, did not then come to her. The words rang sombre and terrible. "No—no, Pierre," she cried, "not that! Our Emperor needs him—our country needs. Revenge on me, Pierre! I only was faithless. I deserve all harm you will give."
"Yes, you were faithless, but it came because of weakness, and the low status of your sex in this barbaric land. Haganè and your father forced you. They threatened, cowed you—tortured you, for all I know. Look at your hands! Mon Dieu, your little hands!"