pride.  “I know Cardegna, and I knew the poor baroness who killed herself because he basely abandoned her.  Ah, you never heard the truth before?  I trust it is pleasant to you.  As he left her he has left you.  He will never come back.  I saw him in Paris three weeks ago.  I could tell tales not fit for your ears.  And for him you will die in this horrible place unless you consent.  For him you have thrown away everything,—­name, fame, and happiness,—­unless you will take all these from me.  Oh, I know you will cry out that it is untrue; but my eyes are good, though you call me old!  For this treacherous boy, with his curly hair, you have lost the only thing that makes woman human,—­your reputation!” And Benoni laughed that horrid laugh of his, till the court rang again, as though there were devils in every corner, and beneath every eave and everywhere.

People who are loud in their anger are sometimes dangerous, for it is genuine while it lasts.  People whose anger is silent are generally either incapable of honest wrath or cowards.  But there are some in the world whose passion shows itself in few words but strong ones, and proceeds instantly to action.

Hedwig had stood back against the stone casing of the entrance, at first, overcome with the intensity of what she suffered.  But as Benoni laughed she moved slowly forward till she was close to him, and only his outstretched arm barred the doorway.

“Every word you have spoken is a lie, and you know it.  Let me pass, or I will kill you with my hands!”

The words came low and distinct to his excited ear, like the tolling of a passing bell.  Her face must have been dreadful to see, and Benoni was suddenly fascinated and terrified at the concentrated anger that blazed in her blue eyes.  His arm dropped to his side, and Hedwig passed proudly through the door, in all the majesty of innocence gathering her skirts, lest they should touch his feet or any part of him.  She never hastened her step as she ascended the broad stairs within and went to her own little sitting-room, made gay with books and flowers and photographs from Rome.  Nor was her anger followed by any passionate outburst of tears.  She sat herself down by the window and looked out, letting the cool breeze from the open casement fan her face.

Hedwig, too, had passed through a violent scene that day, and, having conquered, she sat down to think over it.  She reflected that Benoni had but used the same words to her that she had daily heard from her father’s lips.  False as was their accusation, she submitted to hearing her father speak them, for she had no knowledge of their import, and only thought him cruelly hard with her.  But that a stranger—­above all, a man who aspired, or pretended to aspire, to her hand—­should attempt to usurp the same authority of speech was beyond all human endurance.  She felt sure that her father’s anger would all be turned against Benoni when he heard her story.