CHAPTER XXV.
"Hovers the steel above his head,
Suspended by a spider thread:
On, on! a life hangs on thy speed;
With lightning wing the gallant steed!
Buoy the full heart up! It will sink
If it but pause to feel and think.
There is no time to dread his fate:
No thought but one--too late, too late!"
MS.
Too soon did Marie realize the power of Don Luis to exercise his
threatened vengeance! Two days after that terrible interview, she
was again dragged to the hall of judgment: the same questions were
proposed as before, whether or not she would denounce the secret
followers of her own creed, and confess her late husband's real
belief; and the same firm answers given. We shrink in loathing from
the delineation of horrible tortures applied to that frail and gentle
being--shrink, for we know that such things actually have been; and
women--young, lovely, inoffensive as Marie Morales--have endured the
same exquisite agony for the same iniquitous purpose! In public,
charged to denounce innocent fellow-beings, or suffer; in private--in
those dark and fearful cells--exposed to all the horror and terror of
such persecution as we have faintly endeavored to describe. It is no
picture of the imagination, delighting to dwell on horrors.
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