Then the earnest eyes dropped to the frightened ones searching his face.

“You are mine!” Truedale spoke commandingly, with a force that never before had marked him.

“Yes.” The word was a faint, frightened whisper.

“My darling, kiss me!”

She kissed him with trembling lips.

“You love me?”

“I—I love you.”

“You—you trust me?”

“I—oh! yes; yes.”

“Then come, my doney-gal! For life or death, it is you and I, little woman, from now on!”