"I know you love me!" he said, and from where I stood I saw the cold derisive smile flash from his lips to his eyes in lightning-like mockery--"I have always known it! Your vampire soul leaped to mine at the first glance I ever gave you,--you were a false foul thing from the first, and you recognized your master! Yes--your Master!" for she had uttered a faint cry as if in fear,--and he, stooping, snatched her two hands and grasped them hard in his own--"Listen to the truth of yourself for once from one who is not afraid to speak it!--you love me,--and truly your body and soul are mine to claim, if I so choose! You married with a lie upon your lips; you swore fidelity to your husband before God, with infidelity already in your thoughts, and by your own act made the mystical blessing a blasphemy and a curse! Wonder not then that the curse has fallen! I knew it all!--the kiss I gave you on your wedding-day put fire in your blood and sealed you mine!--why, you would have fled to me that very night, had I demanded it,--had I loved you as you love me,--that is, if you choose to call the disease of vanity and desire that riots in your veins, by such a name as love! But now hear _me_!" and as he held her two wrists he looked down upon her with such black wrath depicted in his face as seemed to create a darkness round him where he stood,--"I hate you! Yes--I hate you, and all such women as you! For you corrupt the world,--you turn good to evil,--you deepen folly into crime,--with the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes, you make fools, cowards and beasts of men! When you die, your bodies generate foulness,--things of the mould and slime are formed out of the flesh that was once fair for man's delight,--you are no use in life--you become poison in death,--I hate you all! I read your soul--it is an open book to me--and it is branded with a name given to those who are publicly vile, but which should, of strict right and justice, be equally bestowed on women of your position and type, who occupy pride and place in this world's standing, and who have not the excuse of poverty for selling themselves to the devil!"