. . crying out--"This for
your lie! This for my sorrow!--This for your love!--"
Reeling back with the agony of her murderous blows he made a fierce
effort to tear the knife from her hands, but she suddenly threw it a
long way from her towards the river, where it fell with a light
splash, and rushing at him twined her arms close about his neck,
while her mad laughter, piercing and terrible, rang out through the
quiet air.
"Together!" she said, "That day at the fair we were together, and
now--we shall be together again! Come!--Come! I have waited long
enough!--your promised letter never came--you have kept me waiting a
long long while--but now I will wait no longer! I have found you!--I
will never let you go!"
Furiously, despite his wounds, he fought with her,--tried to thrust
her away from him,--and beat her backwards and downwards,--but she
had the strength of ten women in her maddened frame, and she clung
to him with the tenacity of some savage beast. All around them was
perfectly quiet,--there was not a soul in sight,--there was no place
near where a shout for help could have been heard. Struggling still,
dizzy, blind and breathless, he did not see that they were nearing
the edge of the slippery bank--all his efforts were concentrated in
an endeavour to shake off the infuriated creature, made more
powerful in her very madness by the just sense of her burning wrong
and his callous treachery--when all at once his foot slipped and he
fell to the ground.
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