The eager lover stepped across the body and came on, his countenance joyously alight.
But mademoiselle was shrinking now, in horror.

She was a girl upon the threshold of glorious womanhood, of a fine height and nobly moulded, with heavy coils of glossy black hair above and about a face that was of the colour of old ivory.

Her countenance was cast in lines of arrogance, stressed by the low lids of her full dark eyes.
In a bound her well-beloved was beside her, flinging away his bloody poleaxe, he opened wide his arms to enfold her.

But she still shrank even within his embrace, which would not be denied; a look of dread had come to temper the normal arrogance of her almost perfect face.
"Mine, mine at last, and in spite of all!" he cried exultantly, theatrically, truly heroic.
But she, endeavouring to thrust him back, her hands against his breast, could only falter: "Why, why did you kill him ?" He laughed, as a hero should; and answered her heroically, with the tolerance of a god for the mortal to whom he condescends: "He stood between us.

Let his death be a symbol, a warning.