"You have but to choose," he said. "Come to me—my wife or concubine,—I care not which, and I pledge you my word, he shall die! I have but spared him until I sounded your humour!"
She shivered, and raised her hands as if to conjure away some apparition.
"No—no—never!" she gasped. "You would not dare! You would not dare! You are but frightening me! Have pity on me and let me go!"
"I do not detain you! Go if you will, but remember the wager!"
Her head drooped, while Benilo drew nearer, bending his exultant eyes on her wilted form, and in the passion which mastered him, he grasped her wrists and drew her hands apart, then kissed her passionately upon the lips.
With a hunted cry, she wrenched herself away, and leaping backward, faced him, her voice choked with panting fury:
"Fool! Devil! Coward! Could you not respect a woman's grief for the degradation you have forced upon her? Dog! I might have paid your forfeit had I died of shame! But now—I will not!" She snapped her fingers in his face. "This for your wager! This for an oath to you—the vermin of the earth!"
Benilo took a backward step, awed by the flaming madness in her eyes.
"Take care!" he growled threateningly.
"The vermin that crawls in the dust, I say," she reiterated panting, "the dust—the dust! Better a thousand deaths than the brute love you offer! Between us it is a duel to the death! I will win him back,—if I have to barter my evil beauty for eternal damnation,—if our entwined souls burn to crisp in purgatory,—I will win him back, revealing myself to him the foul thing I am,—and by way of contrast sing your praises, my Lord Benilo—believe me,—the devils themselves shall be wroth with jealousy at my song."