Helen watched her captive closely as he backed through the door before her, for she dared not lose sight of him until free.  The middle room was lighted by a glass lamp on the bar and its rays showed that the front-door was secured by a large iron bolt.  She thanked Heaven there was no lock and key.

Struve had retreated until his back was to the counter, offering no word, making no move, but the darting brightness of his eyes showed that he was alert and planning.  But when the door behind Helen, urged by the wind through the broken casement, banged to, the man made his first lightning-like sign.  He dashed the lamp to the floor, where it burst like an eggshell, and darkness leaped into the room as an animal pounces.  Had she been calmer or had time for an instant’s thought Helen would have hastened back to the light, but she was midway to her liberty and actuated by the sole desire to break out into the open air, so plunged forward.  Without warning, she was hurled from her feet by a body which came out of the darkness upon her.  She fired the little gun, but Struve’s arms closed about her, the weapon was wrenched from her hand, and she found herself fighting against him, breast to breast, with the fury of desperation.  His wine-burdened breath beat into her face and she felt herself bound to him as though by hoops, while the touch of his cheek against hers turned her into a terrified, insensate animal, which fought with every ounce of its strength and every nerve of its body.  She screamed once, but it was not like the cry of a woman.  Then the struggle went on in silence and utter blackness, Strove holding her like a gorilla till she grew faint and her head began to whirl, while darting lights drove past her eyes and there was the roar of a cataract in her ears.  She was a strong girl, and her ripe young body, untried until this moment, answered in every fibre, so that she wrestled with almost a man’s strength and he had hard shift to hold her.  But so violent an encounter could not last.  Helen felt herself drifting free from the earth and losing grip of all things tangible, when at last they tripped and fell against the inner door.  This gave way, and at the same moment the man’s strength departed as though it were a thing of darkness and dared not face the light that streamed over them.  She tore herself from his clutch and staggered into the supper-room, her loosened hair falling in a gleaming torrent about her shoulders, while he arose from his knees and came towards her again, gasping: 

“I’ll show you who’s master here—­”

Then he ceased abruptly, cringingly, and threw up an arm before his face as if to ward off a blow.  Framed in the window was the pallid visage of a man.  The air rocked, the lamp flared, and Struve whirled completely around, falling back against the wall.  His eyes filled with horror and shifted down where his hand had clutched at his breast, plucking at one spot as if tearing a barb from his bosom.  He jerked his head towards the door at his elbow in quest of a retreat a shudder ran over him, his knees buckled and he plunged forward upon his face, his arm still doubled under him.