infamy; therefore I fear you not; neither will I endure your menaces, nor your insulting and barbarous caresses. Trifle not with one who knows herself above you—who defies and derides your power. I dare to die." And she gazed unawed at his closely locked fist. "Stab here—stab to this heart, which, however lost and perverted, yet exists to execrate thy crimes, and to lament its own." "Die then—thus—thus," said her enraged, her inhuman lover, as he struck the dagger, without daring to look where his too certain hand had plunged it. Lady Margaret shrunk not from the blow; but fixing her dying eyes reproachfully upon him, closed them not, even when the spirit of life was gone.
Her murderer stood before her, as if astonished at what he had dared to do. "Lie there, thou bleeding victim," he said, at length pausing to contemplate his bloody work. "Thou hast thought it no wrong to violate thy faith—to make
