"Come!" he said. "You are going to be reasonable after all."
"What is it that you want?" Her desperation sounded in her voice. She looked at him with eyes of wild appeal. Her defiance was all gone. The smile went out of Hyde's face, and suddenly she saw the primitive savage in possession. She had seen it before, but till that moment she had never realized quite what it was.
"What do I want?" he said. "I want you, and you know it. That fellow Baring is not the man for you. You are going to give him up. Do you hear? Or else—if you prefer it—he will give you up. I don't care which it is, but one or the other it shall be. Now do we understand one another?"
Hope stared at him, speechless, horror-stricken, helpless!
He came nearer to her, but she did not recoil, for as a serpent holds its prey, so he held her. She wanted to protest, to resist him fiercely, but she was mute. Even the power to flee was taken from her. She could only stand as if chained to the ground, stiff and paralyzed, awaiting his pleasure. No nightmare terror had ever so obsessed her. The agony of it was like a searing flame.
And Hyde, seeing her anguished helplessness, came nearer still with a sort of exultant deliberation, and put his arm about her as she stood.
"I thought I should win the trick," he said, with a laugh that seemed to turn her to ice. "Didn't I tell you weeks ago that I had—Hope?"
She did not attempt to answer or to resist. Her lips were quite bloodless. A surging darkness was about her, but yet she remained conscious—vividly horribly conscious—of the trap that had so suddenly closed upon her. Through it she saw his face close to her own, with that sneering, devilish smile about his mouth that she knew so well. And the eyes with their glittering savagery were mocking her—mocking her.
Another instant and his lips would have pressed her own. He held her fast, so fast that she felt almost suffocated. It was the most hideous moment of her life. And still she could neither move nor protest. It seemed as if, body and soul, she was his prisoner.
But suddenly, unexpectedly, he paused. His arms slackened and fell abruptly from her; so abruptly that she tottered, feeling vaguely for support. She saw his face change as he turned sharply away. And instinctively, notwithstanding the darkness that blinded her, she knew the cause. She put her hand over her eyes and strove to recover herself.