"If you will, Nick," she answered humbly.
"If I will!" he echoed, with sudden passion. "I warn you, Muriel, you are putting yourself irrevocably in my power, and you will never break away again. You may come to loathe me with your whole soul, but I shall never let you go. Have you realised that? If I take you now, I take you for all time."
He spoke almost with violence, and, having spoken, drew back from her abruptly, as though he could not wholly trust himself.
But nothing could dismay her now. She had fought her last battle, had made the final surrender. Her fear was dead. She stretched out her hands to him with unfaltering confidence.
"Take me then, Nick," she said.
He took the extended hands with quick decision, first one and then the other, and laid them on his shoulders.
"Now look at me," he said.
She hesitated, though not as one afraid.
"Look at me, Muriel!" he insisted.
Then, as she kept her eyes downcast, he put his hand under her chin and compelled her.