She shivered in his hold, but she spoke no word. Had they not always been utterly at variance with one another? How could she hope to make him see anything but evil now that his brutal passions were aroused? How could she ever attempt to convince him that he alone was responsible for the fact that temptation had become even possible to her?
And so she stood in silence while the dreadful force of the man mounted and mounted, menacing her.
He waited for several seconds for some response from her; then, at last, as she made none, he moved, drew her locked wrists behind her, forcing her slowly back till her face was turned up to his gaze.
She felt the scorching fire of the eyes she would not meet, and in a moment her whole body seemed to burn in a furnace of shame. The hot blood stung her from head to foot, pricking every vein. Crimson and quivering, she hung there in his hold, waiting.
"So you won't speak to me?" he said. "Won't even try to defend yourself? Well, maybe you're wise. Maybe explanations would do more harm than good. I know well enough how it is with you. You've got to the pitch of enduring me like a loathsome but incurable disease. You never reflected, did you, that in so doing you were making your own hell? You hate me, but you don't realize that the thing you hate is not me at all but a brute of your own creation. And because of that--p'raps it's a natural consequence--you've come to prefer another man's love to mine."
His hold was tightening upon her; she felt herself being drawn to him, felt the warmth of his body like the glow of an open fire. And a sudden wild wave of rebellion went through her, goading her into action at last. She had never resisted him before; she resisted him now fiercely, passionately, striving with all her strength to free herself from that pitiless hold.
"You never offered me love," she panted, straining back from him even while he mastered her. "Love--love--is a very different thing!"
Her voice went into a gasp that was almost a cry. He was holding her crushed to him in a grip that nearly suffocated her. His eyes blazed down into hers, terrible in their intensity, cruelly, appallingly bright. The savage in him had leapt free of all shackles at last, and had her utterly at his mercy.
"Well?" he said, speaking with lips drawn back, showing his set teeth. "And what is love--as defined by you--and Saltash? Something peculiarly holy?"
The taunt pierced her like a knife, with a pain so unbearable that for the moment she was almost beside herself. For an instant she winced from that intolerable thrust; but only for an instant. The next with a furious wrench she freed one hand and struck him--struck him across his grim, menacing mouth.