God had granted her prayer--to save France. Now the past
and the ignominy of the past might be merged in Judith's nobler guilt.
But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her beck, her
main desire was to slap the man for his childishness. Oh, he had no
right thus to besot himself with adoration! This dejection at her feet
of his high destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inability
to understand him. Angrily she flung away the baton. "Go! Ah, go!" she
cried, like one strangling. "There has been enough of bloodshed, and I
must spare you, loathing you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand
murder you."
But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence from his
associates as lesser folk squeeze water from a sponge. "I cannot go
thus. Acknowledge me to be Alain, the man you love, or else strike
upon the gong."
"You are cruel!" she wailed, in her torture.
"Yes, I am cruel."
Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a hard gesture of
despair. "You have conquered. You know that I love you.
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