Caught in her deception, Alexis - proud but tearful, aware that she might lose everything - mustered all her considerable passion to explain her motive: Katherine had seduced weathly man after wealthy man and Stefan, brillant as he was, had been blinded by her feminine wiles, her "low animal cunning."

As Alexis pointed out, Stefan's late brother, Stravos, had thrown everything away for the love of a woman - Laura Spencer - and she was determined not to let Stefan fall prey to the same familial urges. As she tried to tell Stefan how painful it was to see him suffer, how much this deception had cost her, he remained unmoved.

In fact, Stefan - no stranger to deceit himself - simply could not understand how Alexis would want to protect him from the woman he loved. For Stefan, despite all his money and power, has not been a man to know much real happiness.

And so, with the awful truth indeed confirmed, Stefan reacted as Alexis had most feared. First, with words designed to wound, comparing her to his mother, the detestable Helena Cassadine. And then, after ripping the Cassadine family necklace from her throat, Stefan cut Alexis out of his life forever. Thrown out of his home, Wndemere, banished from all Cassadine property. "You are dead to me now," he told her, and there was little doubt that Stefan would ever forgive or forget.

Could one blame him? Rarely have viewers felt even a shred of sympathy for Stefan, but here, the excellent Stephen Nichols brilliantly combined fire and ice - cruel as he was, Nichols let us see that Stefan's armor was not unpenetrable, that he was indeed deeply wounded by Alexis' lies.

As for Nancy Lee Grahn, every word, every tear, every motion was utterly believable and utterly mesmerizing. If this is not a performance remembed next spring at Emmy time, there is even less justice in Hollywood than there is in Port Charles.