“Nellie—you’re not afraid of me?”
“Please let me go”—for his arms were round her now.
“Not now I’ve got you, little kid.... I’m justabout going to keep you till I know what you’re made of.”
He laughed, and her struggling passed suddenly into weakness.
Then his mouth pressed down on hers, and Nell, who had till that moment known nothing but the bodiless spirit of love, suddenly met him in the power of his fierce body. The contact seemed to break her. She lay back helpless in Kadwell’s arms, unable to stir or resist till he let her go, and he did not let her go till he seemed to have drawn all the life out of her in a long kiss—all the hoard of fire and sweetness which she had kept long years for another man he drew out of her with his lips and took for his own.
Then he released her, and she fell back against the binns, gasping a little, and crying, while her eyes strained to him through the dusk. She seemed unable to move, and he pointed to the bowl of chicken-food on the floor, saying, “Pick up that trug and come out.”
She did as he told her, and went out meekly at his heels.
7
Kadwell looked on Nell as a conquered kingdom. She herself was not so sure, for after he had gone home that night, her flagging powers revived, and she had a week in which to recruit her forces. During that week she passed through moments of sick revulsion from him, in which his strength and roughness disgusted her. But when he came again, she found herself powerless as she had been before.