"None know it, save I and yonder priest."
"Then I uncover to you."
He jerked his mask away, and stood half stooping towards her with a peculiar lustre in his eyes. Duessa stared at him as at one risen from the dead. Her face blanched and stiffened into a bleak, gaping terror, and she could not speak.
"Your tale dies with you."
He smote her suddenly in the bosom with his poniard, smote her so heavily that the blow dragged her to her knees. She screamed like a trapped hare, pressed her hands over her bosom, blood oozing over them. A last malevolence leapt into her eyes; she panted and strove to speak.
"Listen, sirs, hear me----"
Fulviac, standing over her like a Titan, smote her again to silence, and for ever. With arms thrust upwards, she fell forward along the floor, her white face hidden by her hood. A red ringlet curled away over the polished oak. Fulviac had sprung away with jaw clenched, his face as stone. He drew his sword, plucked Balthasar by the throat, hurled him back against the wainscotting.
"A spy, poniard him."
The great room rushed into uproar; the guards came running from the door. Fulviac had passed his sword through Balthasar's body. The friar rolled upon the floor, yelping, and clutching at the swords that stabbed him. It was soon over; not a moan, not a whimper. Sforza, white as a corpse, gripped Fulviac by the shoulder.
"Know you whom you have killed?"