"
And she fixed her terrible eyes first on one, and then on another, calling
them by name.
"Ivo Taillebois,--basest of all--"
"Take the witch's accursed eyes off me!" and he covered his face with his
hands. "I shall be overlooked,--planet struck. Hew the witch down! Take
her away!"
"Hugh of Evermue,--the dead man's daughter is yours, and the dead man's
lands. Are not these remembrances enough of him? Are you so fond of his
memory that you need his corpse likewise?"
"Give it her! Give it her!" said he, hanging down his head like a rated
cur.
"Ascelin of Lincoln, once Ascelin of Ghent,--there was a time when you
would have done--what would you not?--for one glance of Torfrida's
eyes.--Stay. Do not deceive yourself, fair sir, Torfrida means to ask no
favor of you, or of living man. But she commands you. Do the thing she
bids, or with one glance of her eye she sends you childless to your
grave."
"Madam! Lady Torfrida! What is there I would not do for you? What have I
done now, save avenge your great wrong?"
Torfrida made no answer, but fixed steadily on him eyes which widened
every moment.
"But, madam,"--and he turned shrinking from the fancied spell,--"what
would you have? The--the corpse? It is in the keeping of--of another
lady."
"So?" said Torfrida, quietly.
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