As wine oozes drop by drop from the needle-punctured wine-skin--so shall you die, weeping, beseeching, drained to the white like a dripping calf in the shambles, yet at the same time reddened and shamed with the shame deadly and unnameable.

Then La Meffraye, whom now you disdain to answer with a look, will wash her hands in your life's blood and laugh as your tears fall slowly upon the latchet of her shoon!" But a new voice broke in upon the railing of the hideous woman fiend.
"_Out, foul hag! Get you to your own place!_" it said, with an accent strong and commanding.
And the affrighted and heart-sick girls turned them about to see the Lady Sybilla stand fair and pale at the head of the turret stair which opened out upon the roof of the White Tower.
At this interruption the eyes of La Meffraye seemed to burn with a fresher fury, and the green light in them shone as shines an emerald stone held up to the sun.
The hag cowered, however, before the outstretched index finger of Sybilla de Thouars.
"Ah, fair lady," she whimpered, "be not angry--and tell not my lord, I beseech you.

I did but jest." "_Hence!_" the finger was still outstretched, and, in obedience to the threatening gesture, the hag shrank away.

But as she passed through the portal down the steps of the turret, she flung back certain words with a defiant fleer.
"Ah, you are young, my lady, and for the present--for the present your power is greater than mine.

But wait! Your beauty will wither and grow old.