"Shall I throttle her, or shall I kiss her?" he asked himself, and fumbled for her throat.
Then in her deadly terror she made a counter-attack. Her hands were fastened in his shoulders like iron rivets. It needed a gathering up of all his strength to withstand their muscular pressure.
A noiseless struggle began. It lasted a minute, and yet seemed to be no nearer its end. Embittered and desperate at first as a wrestle for life and death, it became eventually a sort of game. The combatants apparently had lost sight of what it was they were struggling for. His eyes, bloodshot and wild, sought hers. Her bosom, wet with perspiration, pressed hard against his. Their breathing mingled. Tightly locked in each other's arms they staggered and swayed to and fro. He pressed her in the back of her knee, but she did not yield, and with renewed vigour tried to draw him down to her. For one second in their delirious grappling they gazed dreamily into each other's eyes. Then she vibrated from head to foot, and in the midst of the conflict laid her cheek caressingly on the arm that was raised against her. He saw the action, he saw how her eyes hung on his face with melting solicitude--saw the beautiful dishevelled head droop like a broken flower.
"If you are cursed, why should it be for nothing?" And as the thought flashed through him, he bent over her with a sigh, and kissed her on the mouth.
She groaned aloud, clung heavily to him, and buried her teeth, till they met, in his lips. Then, overcome, with suddenly collapsed limbs, she slipped from his arms on to the floor, and lay with the back of her head flat on the bare boards.
He stared down at her half-stunned. She would have looked as if she were dead, had it not been for the heaving bosom, that seemed to fight for air. Blood trickled from his lip, and unconsciously he wiped it away with his tongue.
"What next?" he asked himself.
The longer he gazed at the prostrate form the intenser became his anxiety, till it almost amounted to insanity; anxiety for what must come.
"Away! out of the house! Away before she moves!" an inward voice commanded. He tore down his coat from the wall, crushed a fur cap over his brow, and flew out into the bitter cold night, as if chased by the devil.
But he could not escape--could not run away from her; wherever he went she was beside him. A tornado raged in his breast, and lashed the blood to froth in his veins.