The mouth moved spasmodically.
"Obey me! Say it!" cried Unorna with passionate energy.
The lips twisted themselves, and the face was as gray as the gray snow.
"There is--no--Beatrice." The words came out slowly, and yet not distinctly, as though wrung from the heart by torture.
Unorna smiled at last, but the smile had not faded from her lips when the air was rent by a terrible cry.
"By the Eternal God of Heaven!" cried the ringing voice.

"It is a lie!--a lie!--a lie!" She who had never feared anything earthly or unearthly shrank back.

She felt her heavy hair rising bodily upon her head.
The Wanderer had sprung to his feet.

The magnitude and horror of the falsehood spoken had stabbed the slumbering soul to sudden and terrible wakefulness.

The outline of his tall figure was distinct against the gray background of ice and snow.