“Swear to it!”
She raises her arm for the oath, but the gray folds still conceal her hand.
“Woe betide you if you deceive me!”
She shakes her head, and repeats the passionate gesture of entreaty. Her slender form trembles with feverish impatience, and the wonderful eyes seem to plead, in extreme urgency: Come quickly!
I put out my arms—
Once more does the terrible woman rush at me, once more am I held in that mad embrace, once more—on the wings of the wind—do we dash round the room! And once more are all my senses lost in the fiendish whirl!
I attempt to struggle, would pit the abounding strength of my youth against the woman and subdue her. In vain! I can think, I can act, no longer. My whole being is in a swoon, and I am conscious of nothing but two icy lips pressed upon mine with a vehemence calculated to draw my very life out of me.
A shudder seizes me, and the fear of death, and then—again that blow on my shoulders—
I feel as if a pair of iron clamps had been taken off me and I had been freed, and I sink down upon a sofa.
A laughing, jeering crowd surrounds me, shouting: