She stood holding on to the rough oak table like a deer at bay, her face deadly white, and her eyes wide and staring.
Then stealthily the Prince drew nearer, and with a spring seized her and clasped her in his arms.
"Now, now, you shall belong to me," he cried. "You are mine at last, and you shall pay for the hours of pain you have made me suffer!" and he rained mad kisses on her trembling lips.
A ghastly terror shook Tamara. This man whom she loved, to whom in happier circumstances she might have ceded all that he asked, now only filled her with frantic fear. But she would not give in, she would rather die than be conquered.
"Gritzko—oh, Gritzko! please—please don't!" she cried, almost suffocated.
But she knew as she looked at him that he was beyond all hearing.
His splendid eyes blazed with the passion of a wild beast. She knew if she resisted him he would kill her. Well, better death than this hideous disgrace.
He held her from him for a second, and then lifted her in his arms.
But with the strength of terrified madness she grasped his wounded arm, and in the second in which he made a sudden wince, she gave an eel-like twist and slipped from his grasp, and as she did so she seized the pistol in his belt and stood erect while she placed the muzzle to her own white forehead.
"Touch me again, and I will shoot!" she gasped, and sank down on the bench almost exhausted behind the rough wooden table.