“Silence,” shouted Montalvo, yet shrinking back against the wall as though to avoid a sword-thrust.  “Silence, you ill-omened witch, with your talk of God and judgment.  It is too late, I tell you, it is too late; my hands are too red with blood, my heart is too black with sin, upon the tablets of my mind is written too long a record.  What more can this one crime matter, and—­do you understand?—­I must have money, money to buy my pleasures, money to make my last years happy, and my deathbed soft.  I have suffered enough, I have toiled enough, and I will win wealth and peace who am now once more a beggar.  Yes, had you twenty husbands, I would crush the life out of all of them inch by inch to win the gold that I desire.”

As he spoke and the passions in him broke through their crust of cunning and reserve, his face changed.  Now Lysbeth, watching for some sign of pity, knew that hope was dead, for his countenance was as it had been on that day six-and-twenty years ago, when she sat at his side while the great race was run.  There was the same starting eyeball, the same shining fangs appeared between the curled lips, and above them the moustachios, now grown grey, touched the high cheekbones.  It was as in the fable of the weremen, who, at a magic sign or word, put off their human aspect and become beasts.  So it had chanced to the spirit of Montalvo, shining through his flesh like some baleful marsh-light through the mist.  It was a thing which God had forgotten, a thing that had burst the kindly mould of its humanity, and wrapt itself in the robe and mask of such a wolf as might raven about the cliffs of hell.  Only there was fear on the face of the wolf, that inhuman face which, this side of the grave, she was yet destined to see once more.

The fit passed, and Montalvo sank down gasping, while even in her woe and agony Lysbeth shuddered at this naked vision of a Satan-haunted soul.

“I have one more thing to ask,” she said.  “Since my husband must die, suffer that I die with him.  Will you refuse this also, and cause the cup of your crimes to flow over, and the last angel of God’s mercy to flee away?”

“Yes,” he answered.  “You, woman with the evil eye, do you suppose that I wish you here to bring all the ills you prate of upon my head?  I say that I am afraid of you.  Why, for your sake, once, years ago, I made a vow to the Blessed Virgin that, whatever I worked on men, I would never again lift a hand against a woman.  To that oath I look to help me at the last, for I have kept it sacredly, and am keeping it now, else by this time both you and the girl, Elsa, might have been stretched upon the rack.  No, Lysbeth, get you gone, and take your curses with you,” and he snatched and rang the bell.

A soldier entered the room, saluted, and asked his commands.

“Take this order,” he said, “to the officer in charge of the heretic, Dirk van Goorl; it details the method of his execution.  Let it be strictly adhered to, and report made to me each morning of the condition of the prisoner.  Stay, show this lady from the prison.”