Her strength was nothing to his and he stood up and put his arm around her and strained her to him in an embrace so passionate and powerful she could not have resisted it though she had wished to.
But no thought of resistance came to her, since for the moment she had lost all consciousness of everything save the strange thrill of his bright, clear eyes looking so closely into hers, of his strong arms holding her so firmly.
He released her, or rather she at last freed herself by an effort he did not oppose, and she fled away down the path.
She had an impression that her hair would come down and that that would make her look a fright, and she put up her hands hurriedly to secure it. She never looked back to where he stood, breathing heavily and looking after her and thinking not of her, but of two dead men whom he had seen of late.
“Shall I make the third?” he wondered. “I do not care if I do, not I.”
The path Ella had fled by led into another along which when she reached it she saw Deede Dawson coming.
She stopped at once and began to busy herself with a flower-bed overrun with weeds, but she could not entirely conceal her agitation from her stepfather's cold grey eyes.
“Oh, there you are, Ella,” he said, with all that false geniality of his that filled the girl with such loathing and distrust. “Have you seen Dunn? Oh, there he is, isn't he? I wanted to ask you, Ella, what do you think of Dunn?”
She glanced over her shoulder towards where Dunn stood, and she managed to answer with a passable air of indifference.
“Well, I suppose,” she said, “that he is quite the ugliest man I ever saw. Of course, if he cut all of that hair off—”