im ... fer stayin' a friend when most men
would hev got ter be enemies. I knows all them things--but don't seek
ter spile none of 'em by talkin' love ter me.... Hit's too late.... I'm
married."

For an instant he stood as though long-arrested passions were pounding
against the dams that had held them; then his words came like the
torrent that makes driftwood of its impediments.

"Ter hell with this man Thornton! Ye didn't never hev no chanst ter know
yore own mind.... Ye jest thinks ye loves him because ye pitied him. Hit
won't last noways."

"Bas," she spoke his name with a sharp and stinging note of command,
"I'm willin' ter look over what ye've said so fur--because of what I
owes ye--but don't say no more!"

In a frenzy of wild and sensuous abandon he laughed. Then leaping
forward he seized her and crushed her to him with her arms pinioned in
his and her body close against his own.

Her struggles were as futile as those of a bird held in a human hand--a
hand that takes no thought of how severely it may bruise but only of
making firm its imprisoning hold.

"I said 'ter hell with him'," repeated the man in a low voice but one of
white-hot passion. "I says hit ergin! From ther time thet ye fust begun
ter grow up I'd made up my mind thet ye belonged ter me--an' afore I
quits ye're _goin'_ ter belong ter me. Ye talks erbout bein' wedded an'
I says ter hell with thet, too! Mebby ye're his wife but ye're goin' ter
be my woman!"

The senses of the girl swirled madly and chaotically during those
moments when she strained against the rawhide strength of the arms that
held her powerless, and they seemed to her hours.

The hot breath of the face which had suddenly grown unspeakably horrible
to her burned her like a blast, and through her reeling faculties rose
that same impression of nightmare that had come to Parish when he lay
wounded on his bed: the need of altering at a flash her whole conception
of this man's loyal steadfastness to a realization of unbelievable and
bestial treachery.

The fact was patent enough now, and only the hideous possibilities of
the next few minutes remained doubtful. His arms clamped her so tightly
that she gasped stranglingly for breath, and the convulsive futility of
her struggles grew fainter. Consciousness itself wavered.

Then Rowlett loosened one arm and bent her head upward until he could
crush his lips against hers and hold them there while he surfeited his
own with an endlessl