't drink that
stuff. Your father must be mad to offer it to you. Let me take the
beastliness away."

She faced him indignantly. "My father knows what is good for me better
than you do," she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't profess to be a sage. But any
one will tell you that it is madness to take opium in this reckless
fashion. For Heaven's sake, be reasonable. Don't take it."

He came back to the table, but at his approach she laid her hand upon
the glass. She was quivering with angry excitement.

"I will not endure your interference any longer," she declared, goaded
to headlong, nervous fury by his persistence. "My father's wishes are
enough for me. He desires me to take it, and so I will."

She took up the glass in a sudden frenzy of defiance. He had
frightened her--yes, he had frightened her--but he should see how
little he had gained by that. She took a taste of the liquid, then
paused, again assailed by a curious hesitancy. Had her father really
meant her to take it all?

Nick had stopped short at her first movement, but as she began to
lower the glass in response to that disquieting doubt, he swooped
suddenly forward like a man possessed.

For a fleeting instant she thought he was going to wrest it from her,
but in the next she understood--understood the man's deep treachery,
and with what devilish ingenuity he had worked upon her. Holding her
with an arm that felt like iron, he forced the glass back between her
teeth, and tilted the contents down her throat. She strove to resist
him, strove wildly, frantically, not to swallow the draught. But he
held her pitilessly. He compelled her, gripping her right hand with
the glass, and pinning the other to her side.

When it was over, when he had worked his will and the hateful draught
was swallowed, he set her free and turned himself sharply from her.

She sprang up trembling and hysterical. She could have slain him in
that instant had she possessed the means to her hand. But her strength
was more nearly exhausted than she knew. Her limbs doubled up under
her weight, and as she tottered, seeking for support, she realised
that she was vanquished utterly at last.

She saw him wheel quickly and start to support her, sought to evade
him, failed--and as she felt his arms lift her, she cried aloud in
anguished helplessness.

What followed dwelt ever after in her memory as a hideous dream, vivid
yet not wholly tangible. He laid her down upon the couch a