CHAPTER XXXVenetia rose from a short but desperate flurry upon the floor, during which her hands had covered the mouth of a dying man, that he should not scream. Now he lay limp and still.
She looked down upon a floor that was soaked in blood, and was glad that it was not hers. “It is ill,” she thought, “that men do not die without making so foul a mess.” She thought, as she often would, that she could have made the world in a better way. Then she thanked the good-tempered saints that the soaked garments she wore had been the steward’s rather than hers. Had he come up after she had changed to her own clothes, the pity would have been more than it was.
She wiped a long scratch on her hand, which his teeth had grazed, and wished it were more hurt “Well,” she said, and she smiled with truer
