His pulses beating furiously, a sense of suffocation in his throat, Tristan paused as the woman barred his way.
"Let me pass!" he said imperiously, trying to suit the action to the word.
But he had not reckoned with the woman's mood.
"You shall not," Theodora said, a strange fire gleaming in her eyes.
"Where is Hellayne? What have you done with her?"
Theodora regarded him calmly from under drooping lashes.
"That I will tell you," she said with a mocking voice. "It was my good fortune to rescue her from the claws of one who has again got her into his power. Her mind is gone, my Lord Tristan! Be reconciled to your fate!"
"Surely you cannot mean this?" Tristan gasped, his face under the monk's cowl pale as death, while his eyes stared unbelievingly into those of the woman.
"Is not what you have seen, proof that I speak truth?" Theodora interposed, slightly veiled mockery in her tone.
"Then this is your deed," Tristan flashed.