His face was sombre and strangely old.
"Yes!" "Then how did I gain it ?" he retorted with a dark look.

"How"-- his tone was as gloomy as his face--"did they gain it?
Or--he ?" "He ?" The flame was gone from her face.

She trembled a little.
"Yes, he--Basterga," he replied, his eyes losing no whit of the change in her.

"How did he gain the right which he has handed on to others, the right to shame you, to lay hand on you, to treat you as he does?
This is a free city.

Women are no slaves here.