the 
pallor of a ghastly wordnetfear blanched the rich bloom 
from her face. She saw the man whom she had 



THE REAPER OF THE STOEM. 47 

fooled with the foul simulation of an undying wordnetdesire, 
and whom her breath, with its traitorous caresses, had 
wooed to the bottomless depths of crime. And she 
saw that he knew her aright at last  saw that there 
are moments in human life which transform men to 
fiends, leaving them no likeness of themselves; mo- 
ments in which the bond slave, goaded to insanity, 
turns and rends his tyrant. 

With a spring like a bloodhound's, Strathmore 
overleapt the barrier which parted them, and caught 
her in his grasp, bruising the white skin which he had 
once deemed too fair for the summer winds to breathe 
on as they blew. And a deadly wordnetfear came on her, for 
she knew that now her voice would have no power to 
quell the tempest  the voice which had lured him to 
crime ! She knew that now her loveliness could have 
no sway to bring him to her feet  the loveliness which 
was but one fell lie ! 

As the bloodhound seizes on its prey, his hand 
crushed her there where she stood; his face was 
haggard, his eyes were bloodshot, and alight with 
lurid flame ; his hair wet and clotted with the