“My lady,” said I, “well do you know that I would never ask aught for my own life, though the Red Axe itself were at my neck.  But it is for the maid I love, for the little child I carried home out of the arms of the man condemned.  I ask for her life, who never wronged you or any in all this world.  You have heard that task which the Duke hath laid on me, because it is my misfortune to be my father’s son—­I must take away my love’s sweet life, or, if I do not—­” I could proceed no further for the horror which rose in my heart.

“I know it,” she said, calmly; “my father hath told me all.”

“Then,” cried I, “if the power lie with you, as you hope for mercy to your own soul, be merciful!  Save the maiden Helene from the death of shame, and me from becoming her murderer!”

“Ah,” she answered, with delicatest meditative inflection, “this is indeed sweet.  The mighty is fallen indeed.  The proud one is suppliant now.  The knee is bent that would not bend.  Hearken, you and your puling babe, to the Princess Ysolinde!  Were your lives in that glass, to save or to destroy—­her life and your suffering—­to make or to break, I would fling them to destruction, even as I cast this cup into the darkness!”

And as she spoke the wreathed beaker of Venice glass sped out of the window and crashed on the pavement without.

“Thus would I end your lives,” she said, “for the shame that you two put upon me in the day of my weakness.”

“Lady,” I cried, eagerly, “you do yourself a wrong!  Your heart is better than your word.  Do this deed of mercy, I beseech you, if so be you can.  And my life is yours forever!”

“Your life is mine, you say,” cried she; “aye, and that means what?  The wind that cries about the house.  Your life is mine—­it is a lie.  Your life and love both are that chit’s for whom you have despised—­rejected—­ME!”

And I grant that at that moment she looked noble enough in her anger as she stood discharging her words at me with hissing directness, like bolts shot twanging from the steel cross-bow.

“And, lest you should think that I have not the power to save you, I will tell you this—­when you shall see the neck bared for the blade of the Red Axe, the fine tresses you love, that your eyes look upon with desire, all ruthlessly cut away by the shears of your assistants—­ah, I know you will remember then that I, Ysolinde, whom you refused and slighted, had the power in her hand to deliver you both with a word, according to the immaculate laws of the Wolfmark.  Aye, and more—­power to raise you both to a pinnacle of bliss such as you can hardly conceive.  In that hour, when you see me look down upon your anguish, you will know that I can speak the word.  You will watch my lips till the axe falls, and under your hand the young life ebbs red.  But the lips of Ysolinde will be silent!”

“Such knowledge is an easy boast, Lady Ysolinde!” I answered, thinking to taunt her, that she might reveal whether indeed she had the power she claimed.