Her face might have been a dead, blank wall, or cut
out of cold, white stone, for all it expressed; and as she
lightly held up her rich robes in one hand, and in the other bore
the light, the dark, shining eyes were fixed on his face, and
were as barren of interest, eagerness, compassion, tenderness, or
any other feeling, as the shining, black glass ones of a wax
doll. So they stood looking at each other for some ten seconds
or so, and then, still looking full at him, Miranda spoke, and
her voice was as clear and emotionless as her eyes
"Well, Sir Norman Kingsley, I have come to see you before you
die."
"Madame," he stammered, scarcely knowing what he said, "you are
kind."
"Am I? Perhaps you forget I signed your death-warrant."
"Probably it would have been at the risk of your own life to
refuse?"
"Nothing of the kind! Not one of them would hurt a hair of my
head if I refused to sign fifty death-warrants! Now, am I kind?"
"Very likely it would have amounted to the same thing in the end
- they would kill me whether you signed it or not; so what does
it matter?"
"You are mistaken! They would not kill you; at least, not
tonight, if I had not signed it.
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