The wild winds moaned like demons outside. The bare branches writhed and twisted in the storm, tapping weirdly against the window pane. The room grew warmer as the fire took hold of the logs in the grate, and with the heat the fumes of the brandy rose into his brain, and with it his color heightened, his cheeks and lips were flushed and his eyes scintillating. With unsteady hand he reached out for the flask again, uncorked it, and without taking the trouble to reach for the glass, placed the bottle to his lips and drained it to the dregs.
"She is awaking," he muttered, with a maudlin laugh, and springing from his seat with unsteady steps, he crossed the room and stood by the couch, looking down eagerly into the beautiful white face upon the pillow. As if impelled by that steady, serpentine, fiery glance, the girl moaned uneasily.
"Awaking at last!" he muttered, with a diabolical smile. At that moment Faynie's violet eyes opened wide and stared up into his face.
CHAPTER VII.
HE RAISED HIS CLINCHED HAND, AND THE BLOW FELL HEAVILY UPON THE BEAUTIFUL UPTURNED FACE.
With returning consciousness, Faynie's violet eyes opened slowly—taking in, by the flickering light of the candle, the strange room in which she found herself; then, as they opened wider, in amazement too great for words, she beheld the figure of a man, half hidden among the shadows, standing but a few feet away from the couch, his eyes fastened upon her; she could even hear his nervous breathing.
With a gasp of terror Faynie sprang from the couch with a single bound; but the cry she would have uttered was strangled upon her lips by the heavy hand that fell suddenly over them, pressing so tightly against them as to almost take her breath away.
"Don't attempt to scream or make any fuss," cried a hissing voice in her ear—"submit to the inevitable—you are my wife—there is nothing out of the way in your being here with me. Come, now, take matters philosophically and we shall get along all right."
He attempted to draw the girl into his encircling arms, her wonderful beauty suddenly dawning upon him; but she shrank from his embrace, and from the approach of his brandy-reeking lips, as though he had been a scorpion.