Her fierce wrath was in its way sublime.  She was like a beautiful, wild creature raging at its captor, too infuriated to be afraid.

“I defy you,” she declared proudly, “to make me do anything against my will!”

There was scorn as well as defiance in her voice—­scorn because he stood before her so silently; scorn because the fierce torrent of her anger had flowed unchecked.  She had only to stand up to him, it seemed, and like the giant of the fable he dwindled to a pigmy.  She was no longer hurt by his passivity.  She despised him for it.

But it was for the last time in her life.  As she turned contemptuously to pick up her cloak, he moved.

With a single stride he had reached her, and in an instant his hand was on her arm, his face was close to hers.  And then she saw, what she had been too self-engrossed to see before, that fire had kindled fire indeed, and that those rash words of hers had waked the savage in him.

She made a sharp, instinctive effort to free herself, but he held her fast.  She had outrun his patience at last.

“So,” he said, “you defy me, do you?  You defy me to take what is my own?  That is not very wise of you.”

He spoke under his breath, and as he spoke he drew her to him suddenly, violently, with a strength that was brutal.  For a moment his eyes compelled hers, terrible eyes alight with a passion that scorched her with its fiery intensity.  And then abruptly his arms tightened.  She was at his mercy, and he did not spare her.  Savagely, fiercely, he rained burning kisses upon her shrinking face, upon her neck, her shoulders, her hands, till, after many seconds of vain resistance, spent, quivering, terrified, she broke into agonized tears against his breast.

His hold relaxed then, but tightened again as her trembling limbs refused to support her.  He held her for a while till her agitation had in some degree subsided; then at last he took her two shaking hands into one of his, and turned her face upwards.

Once more his eyes held hers, but the fire in them had died down to a smoulder.  His mouth was grim.

“Come!” he said quietly, “you won’t defy me after this?”

Her white lips only quivered in reply.  She made no further effort to resist him.

Very slowly he took his arm from her, still holding her hands.

“You have married a savage,” he said, “but you would never have known it if you had not taunted me with your defiance.  Let me tell you now—­for it is as well that you should know it—­that there is nothing—­do you hear?—­nothing in this world that I cannot make you do if I so choose!  But if you are wise, you will not challenge me to prove this.  It is enough for you to know that as I have mastered myself, so I can—­and so I will—­master you!”

His words fell with a ring of iron.  The old inflexibly sombre demeanour by which alone till that night she had always known him clothed him like a coat of mail.  Only the grasp of his hand was vital and close.  It seemed to burn her flesh.