Pagina 255 de 896

So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their

experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law

and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was

raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting

looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was

not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed

over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his

seat again, and gave the word "Go on!"