“Then give me a brother’s kiss,” she sighed. “That is not much to ask, and I have no one to kiss me now! So give me a brother’s kiss, and let me go!” she pleaded, plaintively.
He hesitated for a moment, and then bending over her, he said:
“It is the first, and for your own sake it must be the last, Rosa!” he pressed his lips to hers.
It was the last as well as the first; for at the meeting of their lips, they were stricken asunder as by the fall of a thunderbolt!
And Sybil, blazing with wrath, like a spirit from the Lake of Fire, stood between them!
Yes! for she looked not human—with her ashen cheeks, and darkened brow, and flaming eyes—with her whole face and form heaving, palpitating, flashing forth the lightnings of anger!
“Sybil!” exclaimed her husband, thunderstruck, appalled.
She waved her hand towards him, as if to implore or command silence.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she muttered, in low and husky tones, as if ashes were in her throat. “But to you!” she said, and her voice rose clear and strong as she turned and stretched out her arm towards Rosa, who was leaning in a fainting condition against the wall—“to you, viper, who has stung to death the bosom that warmed you to life—to you, traitress, who has come between the true husband and his wife—to you, thief! who has stolen from your benefactress the sole treasure of her life—to you I have this to say: I will not drive you forth in dishonor from my door this night, nor will I publish your infamy to the world to-morrow, though you have deserved nothing less than these from my hands; but in the morning you must leave the house you have desecrated! for if you do not, or if ever I find your false face here again, I will tread down and crush out your life with less remorse than ever I set heel upon a spider! I will, as I am a Berners! And now, begone, and never let me see your form again!”
Rosa Blondelle, who had stood spell-bound by the terrible gaze and overwhelming words of Sybil, the wronged wife, now suddenly threw up her hands, and with a low cry, fled from the room.