r new-found resolution
was gone at the first contact with that overwhelming personality of his.
She hung her head in quivering distress.

He bent down, bringing his face close to hers. He tried to look into the
eyes that she kept downcast.

And suddenly he spoke again, softly into her ear. "Why so shy, little
sweetheart? Are you getting frightened now the time is so near?"

Her breathing quickened at his tone. Possessive though it was, it held
that tender note that was harder to bear than all his fiercest passion.
She could not speak in answer. No words would come.

He put his arm around her and held her close. "But you mustn't be afraid
of me," he said. "Don't you know I love you? Don't you know I am going to
make you the happiest little woman in the world?"

Dinah choked down some scalding tears. She longed to escape from the
holding of his arm, and yet her torn spirit felt the comfort of it. She
stood silent, shaken, unnerved, piteously conscious of her utter
weakness--the weakness wrought by that iron discipline that had never
suffered her to have any will of her own.

He put up a hand and pressed her drooping head against his shoulder.
"There's nothing very dreadful in being married, dear," he told her. "I'm
not such a devouring monster as I may seem. Why, I wouldn't hurt a hair
of your head. They are all precious to me."

She quivered at his use of the word that Biddy had employed with such
venom only a few minutes before; but still she said nothing. What could
she say? Against this new weapon of his she was more helpless than ever.
She hid her face against him and strove for self-control.

He kissed her temple and the clustering hair above it. "There now! You
are not going to be a silly little scared fawn any more. Come along and
dance it off!"

His arm encircled her shoulders; he began to lead her to the stairs.

And Dinah went, slave-like in her submission, but hating herself the more
for every step she took.

They went to the ballroom, and presently they danced. But the old subtle
charm was absent. Her feet moved to the rhythm of the music, her body
swayed and pulsed to the behest of his; but her spirit stood apart,
bruised and downcast and very much alone. Her gilded palace had fallen
all about her in ruins. The deliverance to which she had looked forward
so eagerly was but another bondage that would prove more cruel and more
enslaving than the first. She longed with all her quivering heart to run