"Why, you start as though 'twere poison," laughed Lorelie. "Will you not drink, Ivar?" she added, turning to the viscount and offering him the cup. "What! and do you, too, shrink from a few drops of innocent Malvazia? refuse the honour of drinking from the great Abderahman's cup? the caliph's own, veritable, genuine, historic cup! you understand?"
He did—fully. Stepping forward, she said in a fierce thrilling whisper:—
"How much is your life worth, if I let your father know that this cup is but a piece of coloured glass?"
It was not in Lorelie's nature to take pleasure in another's pain; yet on the present occasion the despair and fear expressed in Ivar's eyes was a luxury to her, almost compensating for his attempt on her life.
"It was for your sake I did it," he muttered with white lips.
Contemptuously turning away from him, she said:—
"Well, then, if neither will drink, I, too, shall refuse. I will imitate those excellent examples, my husband and father. Let us be classical and pour out a libation. Here's to the great Archfiend himself, the author and giver of the treasure, for Heaven, I am convinced, has had little to do with it."
She inverted the cup: but, either by accident or design, the greater part of the liquid fell in splashes upon her dress, very few drops reaching the floor.
* * * * * *
On reaching her bedroom Lorelie's first care was to lock the door: her next, to cut from her dress every portion stained with wine. These fragments of cloth she placed in a glass phial, steeping them in water. Then the spirit that had sustained her through the long and terrible ordeal gave way, and reeling forward she fell heavily across the bed.