And the passionate man, still kneeling, pressed the fair, lily hand he held to his lips; but it was quickly withdrawn.
"Monster!" cried Lucretia Borgia, and her features seemed as sternly rigid as marble. "Arise, or I will call on God to curse you where you kneel! Think not to make me an easy prey, or I will teach thee that the blood in my veins is no less passionate because it is not drawn from thy veins. I know thee well! Thy story is not new to me; I had its outlines from mad Seta, long ago, but did not know that I was that child. Up, devil in human shape, or from this hour I shall be thy deadly enemy!"
"Beware, Lucretia! It were not well for thee to force me from my wonted calmness and good feeling towards thee. The love of Pope Alexander VI. is not to be lightly scorned!"
"Your love! If there were aught in hell more polluting, the fiends themselves would be incapable of enduring it, and it would drive them hence!"
"Fool! poor, beautiful fool!" muttered Borgia, with a mocking laugh. "Thou lookest on me, by my soul, just as thy mother did some seventeen years ago,—as vainly, too! She crossed my wishes—and died! Not the first or last who might have claimed a similar epitaph!"
"Ay, jeer on! mock me with a rehearsal of your deeds, even to the murder of my mother! O that I were a man, and thou not a coward! I 'd soon rid the world of a monster, a fiend in human shape, that 's already more than doubly damned!"
"Peace, girl, peace! or I shall forget myself, and forego all mercy!" and he seized her violently by the arm,
