or the flask again,
uncorked it, and without taking the trouble to reach for the glass,
placed the bottle to his lips and drained it to the dregs.

"She is awaking," he muttered, with a maudlin laugh, and springing from
his seat with unsteady steps, he crossed the room and stood by the
couch, looking down eagerly into the beautiful white face upon the
pillow. As if impelled by that steady, serpentine, fiery glance, the
girl moaned uneasily.

"Awaking at last!" he muttered, with a diabolical smile. At that moment
Faynie's violet eyes opened wide and stared up into his face.

CHAPTER VII.

HE RAISED HIS CLINCHED HAND, AND THE BLOW FELL HEAVILY UPON THE
BEAUTIFUL UPTURNED FACE.

With returning consciousness, Faynie's violet eyes opened slowly--taking
in, by the flickering light of the candle, the strange room in which she
found herself; then, as they opened wider, in amazement too great for
words, she beheld the figure of a man, half hidden among the shadows,
standing but a few feet away from the couch, his eyes fastened upon her;
she could even hear his nervous breathing.

With a gasp of terror Faynie sprang from the couch with a single bound;
but the cry she would have uttered was strangled upon her lips by the
heavy hand that fell suddenly over them, pressing so tightly against
them as to almost take her breath away.

"Don't attempt to scream or make any fuss," cried a hissing voice in her
ear--"submit to the inevitable--you are my wife--there is nothing out of
the way in your being here with me. Come, now, take matters
philosophically and we shall get along all right."

He attempted to draw the girl into his encircling arms, her wonderful
beauty suddenly dawning upon him; but she shrank from his embrace, and
from the approach of his brandy-reeking lips, as though he had been a
scorpion.

With a suddenness that took him greatly aback, and for an instant at a
disadvantage, she freed herself from his grasp, and stood facing him
like a young tragedy queen in all her furious anger and outraged pride.

"Do not utter another word, Lester Armstrong!" she panted, "you only add
insult to injury--why it seems to me some horrible trick of the
senses--some nightmare--to imagine even that I could ever have cared for
you--to have believed you noble, honorable and--a gentleman. Why, you
almost seem to be a different person in his guise--you are so changed in
tone and manner from him to whom I gave my heart. The aff