"It doesn't matter. To a place where we can complete that unfinished
experiment of ours. Aren't you happy at the prospect?"
"Do you think," she said unsteadily, "that I'd consent to that even to
save Nick from disgrace and punishment? Do you think I'm fool enough
for that?"
"We'll soon see." He extended his hand. "Scream--fight--struggle!" he
jeered. "Call them down on your sweetheart!"
He had closed his hand on her wrist; she jerked it convulsively from
his grasp.
"I'll bargain with you!" she gasped. She needed a moment's respite to
clarify a thought that had been growing in her mind.
"Bargain? What have you to offer?"
"As much as you!"
"Ah, but I have a threat--the threat to your sweetheart! And I'm
offering too the lure of that evil whose face so charmed you recently.
Have you forgotten how nearly I won you to the worship of that
principle? Have you forgotten the ecstasy of that pain?"
His terrible, blood-shot eyes were approaching her face; and strangely,
the girl felt a curious recurrence of that illogical desire to yield
that had swept over her on that disastrous night of Saturday. There
_had_ been an ecstasy; there _had_ been a wild, ungodly, unhallowed
pleasure in his blows, in the searing pain of his kisses on her
lacerated lips. She realized vaguely that she was staring blankly,
dazedly, into the red eyes, and that somewhere within her, some insane
brain-cells were urging her to clamber to the seat beside him.
She tore her eyes away. She rubbed her bruised shoulder, and the pain
of her own touch restored her vanishing logical faculties. She returned
her gaze to the face of the other, meeting his gaze now coolly.
"Nick!" she said earnestly, as if calling him from a distance. "Nick!"
There was, she fancied, the faintest gleam of concern apparent in the
features opposite her. She continued.
"Nick!" she repeated. "You can hear me, Honey. Come to the house as
soon as you are able. Come tonight, or any time; I'll wait until you
do. You'll come, Honey; you must!"
She backed away from the car; the other made no move to halt her. She
circled the vehicle and dashed recklessly across the street. From the
safety of the opposite walk she glanced back; the red-eyed visage was
regarding her steadily through the glass of the window.
21