you at every round; you in your pride have stood up again, and wiped the blood from your heart, and the tears from your eyes, and tried another fall with me; but now. Glory, you have tried your last. Hitherto you fought not knowing the extent of my power, thinking that I put forth my full might when I spoke, but that I had no strength to act. Now you see what I can do, and what I have done, and you will abandon the fruitless battle. Glory! Glory! Come to my heart. You fear me now, and fear is the first step leading to love. Glory! my own Glory!" his voice faltered, and his fingers worked, "I love you madly. I will do and dare all for you. I will live for you and for nothing in the world but you. Never till this day in the church have I so much as held your hand. Never till this moment. Glory! have I held you to my heart, never till this moment have I felt it bounding against mine, never till this moment have I kissed those dear, dear lips, as I shall now."
He drew her to him. He unloosed his hands to throw his arms round her. She felt them closing on her like a hoop of iron, she felt his heart beating like the strokes of a blacksmith with his hammer; his burning breath was on her cheek. He! He kiss her! She lie on that heart which had schemed and carried out the destruction of her George!
She cried out. She found her tongue. "Let go! I hate you as I never hated you before! I hate you as a mad dog, as a poisonous adder! Let go!" She writhed and slipped partly away.
"Never till I have held you to my breast and kissed you," he said.
"That never, never!" she gasped. She got her hands on his breast and forced his arms asunder behind her.
"Ha, ha! strong," he laughed, "but not strong as I." He gripped her wrists and bent her arms back. She threw herself on the ground, he drew her up. She flung herself against the chair, crushing his hand against the chimneypiece, so that he let go with it for an instant. She groped about with her free hand, in the dark, for some weapon, she grasped something. He cursed her for the pain she had given him, and attempted again to seize her
