Once he looked down upon his helpless
hands, when the sword rolled heavily from them to the floor. Then his
gaze directed itself immovably upon Goisvintha, as she stood at a little
distance from him, with her blood-stained knife, silent as himself.
There was no fury--no defiance--not even the passing distortion of
physical suffering in his features, as he now looked on her. Blank,
rigid horror--tearless, voiceless, helpless despair, seemed to have
petrified the expression of his face into an everlasting form,
unyouthful and unhopeful--as if he had been imprisoned from his
childhood, and a voice was now taunting him with the pleasures of
liberty, from a grating in his dungeon walls. Not even when Antonina,
recovering from her first agony of terror, pressed her convulsive kisses
on his cold cheek, entreating him to look on her, did he turn his head,
or remove his eyes from Goisvintha's form.
At length the deep steady accents of the woman's voice were heard
through the desolate silence.
'Traitor in word and thought you may be yet, but traitor in deed you
never more shall be!' she began, pointing to his hands with her knife.
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