His Hour

She stood holding on to the rough oak table like a deer at bay, her

face deadly white, and her eyes wide and staring.

Then stealthily the Prince drew nearer, and with a spring seized her

and clasped her in his arms.

"Now, now, you shall belong to me," he cried. "You are mine at last,

and you shall pay for the hours of pain you have made me suffer!" and

he rained mad kisses on her trembling lips.

A ghastly terror shook Tamara. This man whom she loved, to whom in

happier circumstances she might have ceded all that he asked, now only

filled her with frantic fear. But she would not give in, she would

rather die than be conquered.

"Gritzko--oh, Gritzko! please--please don't!" she cried, almost

suffocated.

But she knew as she looked at him that he was beyond all hearing.

His splendid eyes blazed with the passion of a wild beast. She knew if

she resisted him he would kill her. Well, better death than this

hideous disgrace.

He held her from him for a second, and then lifted her in his arms.

But with the strength of terrified madness she grasped his wounded arm,

and in the second in which he made a sudden wince, she gave an eel-like

twist and slipped from his grasp, and as she did so she seized the

pistol in his belt and stood erect while she placed the muzzle to her

own white forehead.

"Touch me again, and I will shoot!" she gasped, and sank down on the

bench almost exhausted behind the rough wooden table.

He made a step forward, but she lifted the pistol again to her head

and leant her arm on the board to steady herself. And thus they glared

at one another, the hunter and the hunted.

"This is very clever of you, Madame," he said; "but do you think it

will avail you anything? You can sit like that all night, if you wish,

but before dawn I will take you."

Tamara did not answer.

Then he flung himself on the couch and lit a cigarette, and all that

was savage and cruel in him flamed from his eyes.

"My God! what do you think it has been like since the beginning?" he

said. "Your silly prudish fears and airs. And still I loved you--madly

loved you. And since the night when I kissed your sweet lips you have

made me go through hell--cold and provoking and disdainful, and last

night when you defied me, then I determined you should belong to me by

force; and now it is only a question of time. No power in heaven or

earth can save you--Ah! if you had been different, how happy we might

have been! But it is too late; the devil has won, and soon I will do

what I please."