And yet for these letters--" "For these lives!" she cried proudly.
"You will give yourself ?" "I swear it," she answered, "if you will give them to me! If you will give them to me," she repeated.

And she held out her hands; her face, full of passion, was bright with a strange light.

A close observer might have thought her distraught; still excited by the struggle in the boat, and barely mistress of herself.
But the man whom she tempted, the man who held her price at his belt, after one searching look at her turned from her; perhaps because he could not trust himself to gaze on her.

Count Hannibal walked a dozen paces from her and returned, and again a dozen paces and returned; and again a third time, with something fierce and passionate in his gait.

At last he stopped before her.
"You have nothing to offer for them," he said, in a cold, hard tone.
"Nothing that is not mine already, nothing that is not my right, nothing that I cannot take at my will.