“I’ll let you go when you promise to be my wife—not before. Say you love me, Ann!”
“But I don’t—I don’t love you at all. Let me go, Brett!” She made another futile effort to release herself, but his grasp never slackened.
“You shall love me!” he declared violently.
With the imperative need of the moment Ann found her courage returning. She realised now that it was to be a battle between them, and she was filled with a cold fury against this man who tried to enforce his will on hers. Suddenly she ceased to struggle, and, bending her head back so that she could see his face, confronted him with a cool, proud defiance.
“I shall hate you if you don’t release me at once,” she said quietly.
Her face, so close below his own, was milk-white in the moonlight, and her hair glimmered with strange, lurking lights. Wavering gold of hair and eyes and scarlet line of lips—they roused the devil in him. His mouth crushed down on hers once more.
“You may hate me—but, all the same, you’ll marry me! I swear it!” he said with grim assurance.
“I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
It was very quietly uttered, but the absolute conviction of her answer seemed to arrest him. He loosened his clasp of her body, but with the—same movement his fingers slid to her wrist, prisoning it.
“Who would you marry?” he demanded.