"Then bid your hopes and dreams farewell and scatter your faith to the winds," she shrieked, almost beside herself with the memory of her vow and its consequences. "You are betrayed,—and I have betrayed you!"
Otto had staggered to his feet and gazed upon the beautiful apparition who faced him like some avenging fury, as if he thought that she had gone suddenly mad. For a moment she paused, as if summoning supreme energy for the execution of her task, as if to lash herself into a paroxysm sufficient to make her forget those accusing eyes and his all-mastering love.
"I have betrayed you, Kong Otto! I, Stephania, a woman! Ah! You believed my words! You were vain enough to imagine that the wife of the Senator of Rome could love you,—you,—her greatest foe, you, the Saxon, the alien, the intruder, who came here to rob us of our own, to wrest the sceptre from the rightful lord of the Seven Hills. You hoped Stephania would aid you to realize your mad dreams! How unsophisticated, how deliciously innocent is the King of the Germans! Know then that I have lied to you, when I feigned interest in your cause, know that I have lied to you when I professed to love you! Love you," she cried, while her heart was breaking with every word she hurled against him, who listened to her speech in frozen terror. "Love you! Fool! And you were mad enough to believe it! Do you hear those bells? Do you hear the great tocsin from the Capitol? Do you hear the alarums from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo? They are calling the Romans to arms! They are summoning the Romans to revolt! Do you hear those shouts? Death to the Germans? They are for you,—for you,—for you!"
Again she paused, breathing hard, collecting all her woman's strength to finish what she had begun.
The end had come,—her task must be finished.
Her voice now assumed its natural tones, the more dreadful in their import, as she spoke in the old deep, soulful accents.
"I have lulled you to sleep," she continued, breaking the bridge, which led back into the past, span by span,—"that the Senator of Rome may once again come into his own! I have pretended interest in your monkish fancies, that Rome may once more shake off the invader's accursed yoke. I am a Roman, King Otto,—and I hate you,—hate you with every beat of my heart, that beats for Rome. King Otto, you are doomed."
He had listened to her words with wide, wondering eyes, his heart frozen with terror and anguish, his face pale as that of a corpse, returned from its grave. He heard voices in the distance and the tread of armed feet coming nearer and nearer. Yet he stirred not. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. There were strange rushing sounds in his ears, like mocking echoes of Stephania's words.
At last his lips moved, while with a desperate effort he tried to shake off the spell.
"May God forgive you, Stephania," he gasped like a drowning man, reeled and caught himself, gazing upon her with delirious, burning eyes.