And then, compelled by she knew not what, she lifted her eyes to his. And all her life she shrank and shuddered at the dread memory of what she saw.
For seconds he did not utter a single word. For seconds his eyes held hers, arresting, piercing, devouring. She could not escape them. She was forced to meet them, albeit with fear and loathing unutterable.
"You see!" he said at last, as though concluding an argument. "You are mine! I can do with you exactly as I will—exactly as I will!" He repeated the words almost in a whisper.
But at that she cried out, and began to struggle, like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage.
His hold became cruel in an instant. He forced her hands behind her, holding her imprisoned in his arms. He tilted her head back. His eyes shone down into hers like the eyes of a tiger that clutches its prey. He quelled her resistance by sheer brutality.
"I have warned you!" he said; and she knew instinctively that he would have no mercy.
"How can I marry you?" she gasped in desperation. "I am engaged to—another man!"
She saw his face change. Instantly she knew that she had made a mistake. The ferocity in his eyes turned to devilish malice.
"You will marry me yet!" he said.
"But you will come to hate me some day!" she cried, clutching at straws. "As—as I hate you to-day!"