I looked up again and now her perfect form lay in his arms, and her lips
were pressed against his own; and thus, with the corpse of his dead
love for an altar, did Leo Vincey plight his troth to her red-handed
murderess--plight it for ever and a day. For those who sell themselves
into a like dominion, paying down the price of their own honour, and
throwing their soul into the balance to sink the scale to the level of
their lusts, can hope for no deliverance here or hereafter. As they
have sown, so shall they reap and reap, even when the poppy flowers of
passion have withered in their hands, and their harvest is but bitter
tares, garnered in satiety.
Suddenly, with a snake-like motion, she seemed to slip from his embrace,
and then again broke out into her low laugh of triumphant mockery.
"Did I not tell thee that within a little space thou wouldst creep to my
knee, oh Kallikrates? And surely the space has not been a great one!"
Leo groaned in shame and misery; for though he was overcome and
stricken down, he was not so lost as to be unaware of the depth of the
degradation to which he had sunk.
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