Struggling fiercely to bend back her fair head and kiss her crimson lips, the villain did not catch the rustling sound of the branches at the window, as a man who had been hiding and listening there came at a bound over the sill and into the room.
But the next moment Otho’s arms were caught in a grasp of steel, and a hoarse voice thundered:
“Release the lady, you vile hound, and take your punishment!”
It was St. George Beresford, raging like a lion in his fury, and as Maury’s grasp on Floy relaxed, he caught up the slim, wriggling coward in his athletic grasp, shook him contemptuously, and flew over to the window.
Floy, raising up her eyes to her noble deliverer, saw him, pale with revengeful fury, as, with superb strength, he lifted Maury up to the window and hurled him through it over the tops of the lilacs far out into the grove.
CHAPTER VIII.
“FROM THAT SPOT BY HORROR HAUNTED.”
Floy watched the punishment of Otho Maury with that boundless admiration a woman always feels for manly strength and power.
She thought that St. George Beresford was the grandest, bravest, most beautiful hero in the world, and her heart swelled with gratitude to him for his manly defense of a helpless girl.
But she was frightened, too, when she saw her persecutor’s body flying through the air, and she cried out, shudderingly: