sion. She had seen it before, but till that moment she had
never realized quite what it was.

"What do I want?" he said. "I want you, and you know it. That fellow
Baring is not the man for you. You are going to give him up. Do you
hear? Or else--if you prefer it--he will give you up. I don't care which
it is, but one or the other it shall be. Now do we understand one
another?"

Hope stared at him, speechless, horror-stricken, helpless!

He came nearer to her, but she did not recoil, for as a serpent holds
its prey, so he held her. She wanted to protest, to resist him fiercely,
but she was mute. Even the power to flee was taken from her. She could
only stand as if chained to the ground, stiff and paralyzed, awaiting
his pleasure. No nightmare terror had ever so obsessed her. The agony of
it was like a searing flame.

And Hyde, seeing her anguished helplessness, came nearer still with a
sort of exultant deliberation, and put his arm about her as she stood.

"I thought I should win the trick," he said, with a laugh that seemed to
turn her to ice. "Didn't I tell you weeks ago that I had--Hope?"

She did not attempt to answer or to resist. Her lips were quite
bloodless. A surging darkness was about her, but yet she remained
conscious--vividly horribly conscious--of the trap that had so suddenly
closed upon her. Through it she saw his face close to her own, with that
sneering, devilish smile about his mouth that she knew so well. And the
eyes with their glittering savagery were mocking her--mocking her.

Another instant and his lips would have pressed her own. He held her
fast, so fast that she felt almost suffocated. It was the most hideous
moment of her life. And still she could neither move nor protest. It
seemed as if, body and soul, she was his prisoner.

But suddenly, unexpectedly, he paused. His arms slackened and fell
abruptly from her; so abruptly that she tottered, feeling vaguely for
support. She saw his face change as he turned sharply away. And
instinctively, notwithstanding the darkness that blinded her, she knew
the cause. She put her hand over her eyes and strove to recover herself.

XI

WITHOUT DEFENCE

When Hope looked up, the silence had become unbearable. She saw Baring
standing quite motionless near the window by which he had entered. He
was not looking at her, and she felt suddenly, crushingly, that she had
become less than nothing in his sight, not so much as a thing, to be
ignored.