She saw that he was not himself.  The awful fire in his eyes alone would have told her that.  But words and action so bewildered her that she yielded to the compelling grip.  In a moment she was in the room, and he was closing and shuttering the window with fevered haste.

She stood and watched him, a cold sensation beginning to creep about her heart.  When he turned round to her, she saw that he was smiling, a fierce, triumphant smile.

He threw down the revolver, and as he did so, she found her voice.  “Captain Monck, what does that man want?  What—­what is he doing?”

He stood looking at her with that dreadful smile about his lips and the red fire leaping, leaping in his eyes.  “Can’t you guess what he wants?” he said.  “He wants—­you.”

“Me?” She gazed back at him astounded.  “But why—­why?  Does he want to get money out of me?  Where has he gone?”

Monck laughed, a low, terrible laugh.  “Never mind where he has gone!  I’ve frightened him off, and I’ll shoot him—­I’ll shoot him—­if he comes back!  You’re mine now—­not his.  You were right to come to me, quite right.  I was just coming to you.  But this is better.  No one can come between us now.  I know how to protect my wife.”

He reached out his hands to her as he ended.  His eyes shocked her inexpressibly.  They held a glare that was inhuman, almost devilish.

She drew back from him in open horror.  “Captain Monck!  I am not your wife!  What can you be thinking of?  You—­you are not yourself.”

She turned with the words, seeking the door that led into the passage.  He made no attempt to check her.  Instinct told her, even before she laid her hand upon it, that it was locked.

She turned back, facing him with all her courage.  “Captain Monck, I command you to let me go!”

Clear and imperious her voice fell, but it had no more visible effect upon him than the drip of the rain outside.  He came towards her swiftly, with the step of a conqueror, ignoring her words as though they had never been uttered.

“I know how to protect my wife,” he reiterated.  “I will shoot any man who tries to take you from me.”

He reached her with the words, and for the first time she flinched, so terrible was his look.  She shrank away from him till she stood against the closed door.  Through lips that felt stiff and cold she forced her protest.

“Indeed—­indeed—­you don’t know what you are doing.  Open the door and—­let me—­go!”

Her voice sounded futile even to herself.  Before she ceased to speak, his arms were holding her, his lips, fiercely passionate, were seeking hers.

She struggled to avoid them, but her strength was as a child’s.  He quelled her resistance with merciless force.  He choked the cry she tried to utter with the fiery insistence of his kisses.  He held her crushed against his heart, so overwhelming her with the volcanic fires of his passion that in the end she lay in his hold helpless and gasping, too shattered to oppose him further.