“Oh, no, you’re not,” he said determinedly, and approaching as if about to lay hands on her.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried, recoiling as he advanced.

“At least not till you have given me a kiss—­just one.  Then you can go.”

“You promise that?”

“Yes.”

“Just one?”

“Just one,” he said.

Thinking to get rid of him the sooner, she put up her face and kissed him on the cheek.

“Not that kind,” he protested, “a real one.”

She shook her head.  Wearily she said: 

“I can’t!  I can’t!”

“All right then!” he exclaimed with a laugh.

Without further argument he seized hold of her and drew her close to him in spite of her struggles to free herself.

“Let me go!  Let me go, I say!  Let me go!” she screamed.

He paid no heed to her cries, but drawing her closer until her face touched his, he stooped suddenly and kissed her full on the mouth.  Then he released her.

“Oh, my God!” she cried.

Directly she felt herself free, she rushed to her room.  He tried to stop her, but this time she was too quick.  She reached the room before him and bolted the door in his face.  Balked of his prey, he stood for a moment looking at the closed door in sullen silence.  Then, as if seized by a sudden uncontrollable frenzy, he seized the poker in the fireplace and rushing to the door, smashed in the panel.  Putting his arm through the jagged rent, he coolly withdrew the bolt and entered.

CHAPTER XVI

Daylight filtered slowly through the closed blinds of the palatial Stafford home.  Through the dark nocturnal hours its inmates—­master, guests and servants, had slumbered peacefully, all but one and to her sleep refused to come.  Hysterical, mentally overwrought, physically exhausted from continual weeping, Virginia had tossed feverishly on her pillow until at last dawn had mercifully come to dispel the terrors of the long night.

As she lay there in the darkness, she had tried to see some way out of her misery.  The truth was out at last.  He had admitted it openly, had even boasted of it.  He had bought her and paid for her.  He considered her not as a wife, a companion to respect and love, but as a creature whom he had purchased and who must do his bidding at his command.  What ignominy!  There was only one thing a self-respecting woman could do in such circumstances.  She must boldly assert her independence and leave him, no matter at what sacrifice of her comfort and happiness.  It would be better to undergo any privation rather than endure such suffering, such degradation as this.