"See, my hand is perfectly steady. Sir Karl has given me strength."
She spread the parchment before her, and, taking a quill from the table,
dipped it in the ink-well.
"I'll not need you after all, Sir Karl. I find I can commit my own
crime," she said, much to my disappointment. I was, you see, eager to
sin for her. I longed to kill some one or to do some other deed of
valiant and perilous villany.
Yolanda bent over the missive, quill in hand, but hesitated. She
changed her position on the chair, squaring herself before the
parchment, and tried again, but she seemed unable to use the quill. She
placed it on the table and laughed nervously.
"I surely am a great fool," she said. "When I take the quill in my hand,
I tremble like a squire on his quintain trial. I'll wait a moment, and
grow calm again," she added, with a fluttering little laugh peculiar to
her when she was excited. But she did not grow calm, and after she had
vainly taken up the quill again and again, her mother said:--
"Poor child! Tell Sir Karl what you wish him to do."
Yolanda did so, and then read the missive. I did not know the English
language perfectly, but Yolanda, who spoke it as if it were her mother
tongue, translated as she read. I had always considered the island
language harsh till I heard Yolanda speak it. Even the hissing "th" was
music on her lips. Had I been a young man I would doubtless have made a
fool of myself for the sake of this beautiful child-woman.
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