And, so saying, he swept the unresisting woman into his grasp, and as her body lay motionless against his breast the sight of her lips so close to his own sent the hot blood hurtling through his fevered brain.
Theodora shuddered in his embrace.
He kissed her, again and again, and her wet lips roused in him all the demoniacal passions of his nature.
"Speak," he stammered, "what must I do to prove to you the love which is in my heart—the passion that burns my soul to crisp, as the fires of hell the souls of the damned?"
Theodora's eyes were closed, as if she hesitated to speak the words that her lips had framed. He, Tristan, had brought her to this pass. He had denied, insulted her, he had made a mock of her in the eyes of this man, who was kneeling at her feet, bond slave of his passions. By his side no task would have seemed too great of accomplishment. And whatever the fruits of her plotting he was to have shared them. How she hated him; and how she hated that woman who had come between them. As for him whose stammering words of love tumbled from his drunken lips, Theodora could have driven her poniard through his heart without wincing in the act.
"If you love me then, as you say," she whispered at last, "revenge me on him who has put this slight upon me!"
A baleful light shone in Basil's eyes.
"He dies this very night."
She raised her hands with a shudder.
"No—no! Not a quick death! He would die as another changes his garment—with a smile.—No! Not a quick death! Let him live, but wish he were dead a thousand times. Strike him through his honor. Strike him through the woman he loves."