ain and her eyes starting from their sockets.

The one hideous thought that flashed through her mind was that he was
going to plunge his claws into her eyes and blind her for life. He
could hold her his prisoner then. She made a last desperate struggle
for breath, her hands relaxed, she drooped and sank to the couch toward
which he had hurled her in the first rush of his assault.

He lifted her and choked the slender neck again to make sure, loosed his
hands and the limp body dropped on the couch and was still.

He stood watching her in silence, his arms at his side.

"Damned little fool!" he muttered. "I had to give you that lesson. The
sooner the better!"

He waited with contemptuous indifference until she slowly recovered
consciousness. She lay motionless for a long time and then slowly opened
her eyes.

Thank God! They had not been gouged out as poor Ella's. She didn't mind
the warm blood that soaked her collar and ran down her neck. If he would
only spare her eyes. Blindness had been her one unspeakable terror. She
closed her eyes again and silently prayed for strength. Her strength was
gone. Wave after wave of sickening, cowardly terror swept her prostrate
soul. She could feel his sullen presence--his body with its merciless
strength towering above her. She dared not look. She knew that he was
watching her with cruel indifference. A single cry, a single word and he
might thrust his claw into her eyes and the light of the world would go
out forever.

Her terror was too hideous; she could endure it no longer. She must
move. She must try to save herself. She lifted her head and caught his
steady, venomous gaze.

A quick, sliding movement of abject fear and she was erect, facing him
and backing away silently.

He followed with even step, his gaze holding her as the eyes of a snake
its victim. She would not let him know her terror of blindness. She
preferred death a thousand times. If he would only kill her outright it
was all the mercy she would ask.

"You--won't--kill--me--Jim!" she sobbed. "Please--please, don't kill
me!"

He lifted his sharp finger and followed her toward the shed-room door,
his voice the triumphant cry of an eagle above his prey.

"`FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE--UNTIL DEATH DO US PART!'"

Her heart gave a bound of cowardly joy. He had relented. He would not
blind her. She could live. She was young and life was sweet.

She tried to smile her surrender through her tears as she backed slowl