"Advance one step nearer, and thy vengeance, even as thy passion, will alike be foiled--and may God forgive the deed I do." She shook down the beautiful tresses of her long luxuriant hair, and, parting them with both hands around her delicate throat, stood calmly waiting in Don Luis's movements the signal for her own destruction.
"Fool!" he muttered, as involuntarily he fell back, awed--in spite of his every effort to the contrary--at a firmness as unexpected as it was unwavering.

"Fool! Thou knowest not the power it is thy idle pleasure to defy; thou wilt learn it all too soon, and then in vain regret thy scorn of my proffer now.

Thou hast added tenfold to my wild yearning for revenge on thy former scorn--tenfold! ay, twice tenfold, to thy own tortures.

Yet, once more, I bid thee pause and choose.
Fools there are, who dare all personal physical torment, and yet shrink and quail before the thought of death for a beloved one.
Idiots, who for others, sacrifice themselves; perchance thou wilt be one of them.

Listen, and tremble; or, sacrifice, and save! When in thy haughty pride, and zenith of thy power, thou didst scorn me, and bidding me, with galling contempt, go from thy presence as if I were a loathsome reptile, unworthy even of thy tread, I bade thee beware, and to myself swore vengeance.