“Of course,” said the doctor, with ineffable calm:  “it’s perfectly natural just now.  But you’ll get over it, Mollie, believe me you will, and like me all the better by and by.”

“Will you go?” said Mollie, her eyes beginning to blaze.

“Listen to me first,” said the doctor, earnestly.  “Listen to me, I implore you, Mollie!  I have taken a dangerous step in fetching you here—­in marrying you as I did; my very life is at stake.  Do you think I will stick at trifles now?  No.  You must either return to New York as my wife, openly acknowledging yourself such, or—­never return.  Wait—­wait, Mollie!  Don’t interrupt.  You are altogether in my power.  If you were hidden in a dungeon of the French Bastile you could not be more secure or secluded than here.  There is no house within five miles; there is the wild sea, the wild woods, a stretch of flat, barren, marshy sea-coast—­nothing more.  No one ever comes here by water or land.  There are iron bars to those windows, and the windows are fifteen feet from the ground.  The people in this house think you mad—­the more you tell them to the contrary the less they will believe you.  In New York they have not the slightest clew to your whereabouts.  You vanished once before and came back—­they will set this down as a similar trick, and not trouble themselves about you.  You are mine, Mollie, mine—­mine!  There is no alternative in the wide earth.”

Dr. Oleander’s face flashed with triumph, his voice rang out exultantly, his form seemed to tower with victory, his eyes flashed like burning coals.  He made one step toward her.

“Mine, Mollie; mine you have been, mine you will be for life.  The gods have willed it so, Mollie—­my wife!”

Another step nearer, triumphant, victorious, then Mollie lifted her arm with a queenly gesture and uttered one word: 

“Stop!”

She was standing by the mantel, drawn up to her full height, her face whiter than snow, rigid as marble, but the blue eyes blazing blue flame.

“Back, Doctor Oleander!  Not one step nearer if you value your life!” She put her hand in her bosom and drew out a glittering plaything—­a curious dagger of foreign workmanship she had once taken from Carl Walraven.  “Before I left home, Doctor Oleander, I took this.  I did not expect to have to use it, but I took it.  Look at it; see its blue, keen glitter.  It is a pretty, little toy, but it proves you a false boaster and a liar!  It leaves me one alternative—­death!”

“Mollie!  For God’s sake!”

There was that in the girl’s white, rigid face that frightened the strong man.  He recoiled and looked at the little flashing serpent with horror.

“I have listened to you, Doctor Guy Oleander,” said Mollie Dane, slowly, solemnly; “now listen to me.  All you say may be true, but yours I never will be—­never, never, never!  Before you can lay one finger on me this knife can reach my heart or yours.  I don’t much care which, but yours if I can.  If I am your wife, as you say, the sooner I am dead the better.”