On the table was a slip of paper: "Excuse me, I am so tired--Mother," was written on it. Vera trembled a little. "Come, Victor, you must have some supper," she said coaxingly. "Presently," he said, looking her over with a proprietary glance. "Take off that cloak! Wait, I will do it for you." He went to her. As he unfastened the clasp of the old evening cloak she felt his touch upon her throat--it seemed to make her weak, almost faint. Then he flung it aside--it fell on the floor--and seating himself on the horsehair sofa he drew her down upon his knee. "You are all mine! Do you understand?" he imperiously said; and his dark eyes had a sinister, commanding expression as they gazed into hers which frightened her a little, in spite of her unbounded faith and adoration. "All mine! I could take you--or leave you--as I please! You acknowledge it?" She nodded. To know he cared enough to make love to her overcame any poor scraps of pride that fluttered idly in the wild gale of her passion for him. "Yes," she murmured humbly. "Kiss me, then--let me feel there is one woman in the world worth the taking!" he said, with scathing irony. At that moment he told himself scornfully that they might all be everlastingly banished to Sheol except this one, and he would not turn a hair. He could look coolly over the edge of space and watch their torments with less compunction than he had felt gazing at the disembowelled horses in a Spanish bull-fight. She threw her arms about his neck, and gazed adoringly into his eyes, before she fell yieldingly into his embrace and allowed him to kiss her again and again. "Oh, I love you, I love you!" she murmured in her ecstasy. Unlike poor Joan, she had no burdened conscience dragging her back from the reciprocation of her lover’s passion. "You do, do you?" he asked suddenly, with one of his swift changes of mood, loosing her, and rising to his feet, taking out his cigarette case. "Suppose I were to test you, eh? Frankly, I don’t believe in one of your sex!" He gave a sneering laugh, as he struck a match, and, lighting a cigarette stuck it between his lips. "Little wonder, considering that the old gentleman below sent one of his hags to work my downfall! Surely you--a woman--guessed that a woman was at the bottom of all--my--trouble?" During that silent drive in the cab he had resolved what complexion he would put upon "that wretched business," as he termed his defalcations and consequent flight: in other words, what lies he would tell this trusting, devoted girl. "W--What?" she stammered--turning deadly white and gazing at him as if in those words she had heard her death-sentence.