"Listen to me, Benilo,—mark well my words. What I have been, you know: the beloved, the adored wife of a man, who would have carried me through life's storms under the shelter of his love,—a man, who would have shed the last drop of his life's blood for Ginevra,—that was. For two years we lived in happiness. I had begged him never to lift the veil which shrouded my birth,—a wish he respected, a promise he kept. In the field and at court he pursued the even tenor of his way,—happy and content with my love. Then there crept into our home a hypocrite, a liar, a fiend, who could mock the devils in hell to scorn. He stands there,—Benilo, his name,—a foul thing, who shrank from nothing to gain his ends. Some fiend revealed to him the awful secret of Ginevra's birth, a secret which he used to draw her step by step from the man she loved, to perpetrate a deceit, the cunning of which would put the devils to blush. He promised to restore to her what is her own by right of her birth. He roused in her all the evil which ran riot in her blood, and when she had given herself to him, he revealed himself the lying fiend he was. Stung by the furies of remorse, which haunted her night and day,—in her despair the woman made her love the prize, wherewith to purchase that for which she had broken the holiest ties. But those she made happy were beasts,—enjoying her favour, giving nothing in return. My heart is sick of it,—sick of this sham, sick of this baseness. Heaven once vouchsafed me a sinner's glimpse of paradise, of a home of purity and peace where indeed I might have been a queen,—a queen so different from the one who rules a gilded charnel-house."
Benilo had listened in silent amazement. He failed to sound the drift of Theodora's speech. The whip-lash burned on his cheek. Her sudden dejection gave him back some of his former courage.
"I believe Theodora is discovering that she once possessed a conscience," he said with a sardonic smile. "How does the violent change agree with you?" he drawled insolently, for the first time raising his eyes to hers.
She appeared not to heed the question, but nodding wearily she said:
"I am not myself to-night. Despite all which has happened, I stand here a suppliant before the man who has ruined my life. I have something else to say."
"Then I fear you have played your game and lost," he said brutally.
Theodore interrupted his speech with a gesture, and when she spoke, a shade of sadness touched her halting tones.
"Last night he came to me in my dream.—I will never forget the expression with which he regarded me. I am weary of it all,—weary unto death."
"Unfortunately our wager does not concern itself with sleep-walking—though it seems your only chance of luring your over-scrupulous mate to your bower."
The woman started.