She shut up her infernal casket, leaving the phial of distilled mandrakes, shining like a ruby in the lamp light, upon the table. By its side lay a bag of gold. Theodora arose. The eyes of the two women flashed in lurid sympathy as they parted, and Sidonia accompanied her visitor to the door. As she did so a heavy curtain in the background parted and the white face of Basil peered into the empty room. After a brief interval Sidonia returned. Her face had again assumed its forbidding aspect as, removing the phials and seemingly addressing no one, she said: "We are alone now!" At the next moment Basil stood in the chamber. His eyes burned with a feverish lustre, and there was a horror in his countenance which he strove in vain to conceal. "This must not be," he said hoarsely. "Why did you give her this devil's brew?" And staggering up to the table he gripped the soft white wrist of the woman with fingers of steel. Sidonia's eyes narrowed as she gazed into those of the man. "Do you love that one, too?" she said, wrenching herself free. "Or have you lied to her as you have lied to me?" "Your voice sounds like the cry from a dark gallery that leads to Hell," Basil replied. "You, alone, have I loved all these years, and for your fell beauty have I risked all I have done and am about to do!" "Fear speaks in your voice," Sidonia replied with a cruel smile upon her lips. "You are in my power, else had you long ago consigned me to a place whence there is no return. With me the secret of another's death would go to the grave." "Nay, you do not understand!" Basil interposed. "The woman who has aroused Theodora's maddened jealousy is nothing to me. But I have other plans concerning her--she must be saved!" "Other plans?" replied Sidonia darkly. "What other plans? What sort of woman is she who can arouse the jealousy of Theodora?" "White and cold as the snows of the North." "A stranger in Rome?" "The wife of one whose days are numbered, if I rightly read the oracle." "What is this plan?" Sidonia insisted. "She is to be delivered to Hassan Abdullah, as reward for his aid in the great stroke that is about to fall." In the distance whimpered a bell. "And, when the hour tolls--the hour of which you have so often prated--when you sit in the high seat of the Senator of Rome--where then will I be, who have watched your power grow and have aided it in its upward flight?" Basil's face lighted up with the fires within. "Where else but by my side? Who dares defy us and the realms of the Underworld?" "Who, indeed?" Sidonia replied with a dark, inscrutable glance into Basil's face. "Perchance I should not love you as I do were you not as evil as you are good to look upon! I love you, even though I know your lying lips have professed love to many others, even though I know that Theodora has kindled in you all the evil passions of your soul. Beware how you play with me!"