She wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“If death comes to me through you, death will be pleasant. I will accept it, I desire it; but listen to me.”
She dragged him into the darkness of the wood, stumbling from stone to stone.
“Since you have in your hands,” she continued, “everything we receive from the Gods, the thrill which gives life and that which takes it away, open your two hands upon my eyes, Demetrios ... that of love and that of death, and if you do so, I shall die without regret.”
He gazed at her without replying, but she thought she could read assent in his face.
Transfigured for the second time she lifted up her face with a fresh expression in it, one of new-born desire driving away terror with the strength of desperation.
She said no more, but from between her parted lips each breath seemed to be a song of victory.
She seized him in her arms crying—
“Ah! Kill me ... kill me, Demetrios, why are you waiting!”