And I loosened my grasp of her:  she writhed from me like some glittering wounded serpent.  The tears had dried on her cheeks, her features were rigid and wax-like as the features of a corpse; only her dark eyes shone, and these seemed preternaturally large, and gleamed with an evil luster.  I moved a little away, and turning my own coffin on its side, I sat down upon it as indifferently as though it were an easy-chair in a drawing-room.  Glancing at her then, I saw a wavering light upon her face.  Some idea had entered into her mind.  She moved gradually from the wall where she leaned, watching me fearfully as she did so.  I made no attempt to stir from the seat I occupied.

Slowly, slowly, still keeping her eyes on me, she glided step by step onward and passed me—­then with a sudden rush she reached the stairway and bounded up it with the startled haste of a hunted deer.  I smiled to myself.  I heard her shaking the iron gateway to and fro with all her feeble strength; she called aloud for help several times.  Only the sullen echoes of the vault answered her, and the wild whistle of the wind as it surged through the trees of the cemetery.  At last she screamed furiously, as a savage cat might scream—­the rustle of her silken robes came swiftly sweeping down the steps, and with a spring like that of a young tigress she confronted me, the blood now burning wrathfully in her face, and transforming it back to something of its old beauty.

“Unlock that door!” she cried, with a furious stamp of her foot.  “Assassin! traitor!  I hate you!  I always hated you!  Unlock the door, I tell you!  You dare not disobey me; you have no right to murder me!”

I looked at her coldly; the torrent of her words was suddenly checked, something in my expression daunted her; she trembled and shrunk back.

“No right!” I said, mockingly.  “I differ from you!  A man once married has some right over his wife, but a man twice married to the same woman has surely gained a double authority!  And as for ’dare not!’ there is nothing I ‘dare not’ do to-night.”

And with that I rose and approached her.  A torrent of passionate indignation boiled in my veins; I seized her two white arms and held her fast.

“You talk of murder!” I muttered, fiercely.  “You—­you who have remorselessly murdered two men!  Their blood be on your head!  For though I live, I am but the moving corpse of the man I was—­hope, faith, happiness, peace—­all things good and great in me have been slain by you.  And as for Guido—­”

She interrupted me with a wild sobbing cry.

“He loved me!  Guido loved me!”

“Ay, he loved you, oh, devil in the shape of a woman! he loved you!  Come here, here!” and in a fury I could not restrain I dragged her, almost lifted her along to one corner of the vault, where the light of the torches scarcely illumined the darkness, and there I pointed upward.  “Above our very heads—­to the left of where we stand—­the brave strong body of your lover lies, festering slowly in the wet mould, thanks to you!—­the fair, gallant beauty of it all marred by the red-mouthed worms—­the thick curls of hair combed through by the crawling feet of vile insects—­the poor frail heart pierced by a gaping wound—­”