As she did so a heavy curtain in the background parted and the white face of Basil peered into the empty room.
After a brief interval Sidonia returned.
Her face had again assumed its forbidding aspect as, removing the phials and seemingly addressing no one, she said:
"We are alone now!"
At the next moment Basil stood in the chamber. His eyes burned with a feverish lustre, and there was a horror in his countenance which he strove in vain to conceal.
"This must not be," he said hoarsely. "Why did you give her this devil's brew?"
And staggering up to the table he gripped the soft white wrist of the woman with fingers of steel.
Sidonia's eyes narrowed as she gazed into those of the man.
"Do you love that one, too?" she said, wrenching herself free. "Or have you lied to her as you have lied to me?"
"Your voice sounds like the cry from a dark gallery that leads to Hell," Basil replied. "You, alone, have I loved all these years, and for your fell beauty have I risked all I have done and am about to do!"