laring down into his own.

"Be still!" ordered Piers, his voice no more than a whisper. "Or I'll
kill you--by Heaven, I will!"

Tudor was utterly powerless in that relentless grip. His heart was
pumping with great hammer-strokes; his breathing came laboured between
those merciless hands. His own hands were closed upon the iron wrists,
but their hold was weakening moment by moment, he knew their grasp to be
wholly ineffectual. He obeyed the order because he lacked the strength to
do otherwise.

Piers slowly slackened his grip. "Now," he said, speaking between lips
that scarcely seemed to move, "you will make me that promise."

"What--promise?" Gaspingly Tudor uttered the question, yet something of
the habitual sneer which he always kept for Piers distorted his mouth as
he spoke. He was not an easy man to beat, despite his physical
limitations.

Sternly and implacably Piers answered him. "You will swear--by all you
hold sacred--to take no advantage whatever of me while I am away. You had
a special purpose in view when you planned to get me out of the way. You
will swear to give up that purpose, till I come back."

"I?" said Tudor.

Just the one word flung upwards at his conqueror, but carrying with it a
defiance so complete that even Piers was for the moment taken by
surprise! Then, the devil urging him, he tightened his grip again.
"Either that," he said, "or--"

He left the sentence unfinished. His hands completed the threat. He had
passed the bounds of civilization, and his savagery whirled him like a
fiery torrent through the gaping jaws of hell. The maddening flames were
all around him, the shrieking of demons was in his ears, driving him on
to destruction. He went, blinded by passion, goaded by the intolerable
stabs of jealousy. In those moments he was conscious of nothing save a
wild delirium of anger against the man who, beaten, yet resisted him, yet
threw him his disdainful refusal to surrender even in the face of
overwhelming defeat.

But the brief respite had given Tudor a transient renewal of strength.
Ere that terrible grip could wholly lock again, he made another frantic
effort to free himself. Spasmodic as it was, and wholly unconsidered, yet
it had the advantage of being unexpected. Piers shifted his hold, and in
that instant Tudor found and gripped the edge of the table. Sharply, with
desperate strength, he dragged himself sideways, and before his adversary
could prevent it he was over the edge