've kept that one. And now it's
your turn. I thought at first I'd kill you. But I fancy this will hurt
you more."

His hand shot suddenly out from behind him, and there followed the
whistle of a thong--the thick, leathern thong with which he kept his
dogs in order.

It struck her as she stood before him, struck and curled about her
shoulders with a searching, scalding agony that turned her sick, wringing
from her a cry that would never have been uttered had she been prepared.

But before he could strike again she was ready to cope with his madness.
On the instant she sprang, not from him, but to him, clasping his arms
with both of hers.

"Giles!" she said, and her voice rang clear and commanding. "You are not
yourself. You don't know what you are doing. Look at me! Do you hear?
Look at me!"

That was his vulnerable point, and instinctively she knew it. He was
afraid--as a wild animal is afraid--of the compulsion of her eyes. But he
fought with her savagely, furiously, refusing to face her, struggling
with inarticulate oaths to break away from her clinging arms.

And Anne was powerless against him, powerless as Nap had been earlier
in the day, to make any impression against his frenzied strength. She
was impotent as a child in that awful grip, and in a very few seconds
she knew it.

He had already wrung his arm free and raised it to strike a second blow,
while she shut her eyes in anguished expectation, still clinging blindly
to his coat, when the door burst open with a crash and Dimsdale tore
into the room.

Anne heard his coming, but she could not turn. She was waiting with every
nerve stretched and quivering for the thong to fall. And when it did
not, when Dimsdale, with a strength abnormal for his years, flung himself
at the upraised arm and bore it downwards, she was conscious not of
relief, but only of a sudden snapping of that awful tension that was like
a rending asunder of her very being. She relaxed her hold and tottered
back against the wall.

"He will kill you!" she heard herself saying to Dimsdale. "He will
kill you!"

But Dimsdale clung like a limpet. Through the surging uproar of her
reeling senses Anne heard his voice.

"Sir Giles! Sir Giles! This won't do, sir. You've got a bit beyond
yourself. Come along with me, Sir Giles. You are not well. You ought to
be in bed. Now, now, Sir Giles! Give it up! Come! Here's West to help
you undress."

But Sir Giles fought to be free, cursing hideousl