The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 1 — page 109: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BY RIGHT OF SWORD. 10g covery because of my love for him? And further that he was leaving the house when my husband, roused by the noise I made, met him; and that I saw the deed done?’’ She paused and changed her tone to one of fierce directness, as she continued: ‘‘ The dagger that killed Christian Tueski is your own weapon, known by its sheath to a hundred people; and that sheath, with your name on it, is in my possession. What chance of life would there be for you and yours if these things were made known. Now, do you wish to go?”’ A hot and passionate reply rose to my lips, but was checked before uttered. I thought of Olga, and I knew that every word this woman said was true—that no power in Russia could save my life or Olga’s liberty if the tale were told now. Delay I must have at any cost. ‘Time in which to meet this woman’s horrible cunning and daring plot. If I had hated her before, she was now loathsome ; while the fears she had stirred on Olga’s account intensified and embittered a thousandfold my resentment. Yet hateful as the task was, I was prepared to continue my part with her. ‘You think this love?’’ I said, after a pause in which she had been waiting breathlessly for me to speak. ‘‘Do women love the men they hold to them by the tether rope of threats ?’’ ‘Do women kill for the sake of men they do not love? ”’ ‘* Do you think to keep my love by threatening me with death ?”’ ‘“Have I not inflicted death to keep you? Why do you wish to bandy phrases? My deeds speak for themselves. ‘They show you well enough what I will dare to keep you true to me. You are mine, Alexis, and no power shall ever part us. I have told you this often before. It was you who sought me, who profiered me your love. Do you think me a silly, simple fool to be wooed and won and when deserted, willing to do no more than wring my feeble hands and shed silly tears, and prate and maunder between my stupid sobs, that my heart is broken and that I fain would die? Bah! I am not of that sort. I am a woman who can will and act, and fashion my own. ends in my own way. Itis not the stream that carries me, but I who turn the stream even though it be mingled with blood. No, no. Ii you play me false, Alexis, it is you and not I who shall die because my heart is broken.”’ She showed this determination in every line of her beautiful face and movement of her magnificent figure, as she stood before me a lovely, hateful type of a vengeful woman. She changed her mood, however, with astonish- ing suddenness and turned all softness and tenderness. ‘But under all this lies my love,’’ she said. ‘‘It was love drove me to everything. Your pledge to that made me feel as nothing else could have done the wall of separation between us while he lived; and my love could not endure it. Ah, how I love you!”’ While she was speaking, I was thinking ; trying to see some flaw in the coil she had spread round me. But I could see none. ‘Time might find a way ; but even time she grudged,' and did not mean to give. ‘“But we can’t be married now at the moment when your husband is Eomichook (S@)