He stood looking down at her with a proud look of power, and she involuntarily shrank back in her seat and trembled. "In the second place," he continued, "I take it from your manner that you mean for a few days to be defiant, and that you will try to escape. Well, try if you like, and find how vain it is. I have you here, and in spite of everything I shall keep you safely. I will be plain and frank. For your fortune and for yourself I love you with a middle-aged man's strong love for a beautiful girl who has awakened in him passions that he thought were dead. You will try and escape? No, you will not; for now, for the first time, I shall really cage the lovely little bird I have entrapped. You will keep to your room, a prisoner, till you place your hands in mine, and tell me that you are mine whenever I wish. You will appeal to my servants? Well, appeal to them. You will try and escape by your window? Well, try. You must know by now that it opens over a narrow yard, and an attempt to descend from that means death; but there are ways of fastening such a window as that, and this will be done, for I want to live and love, and your death would mean mine." He paused and looked down at her in calm triumph, but her firm gaze never left his, and her lips were tightly drawn together. "I could appeal to your pity, but I will not now. I could tell you of my former loveless marriage, and my weary life with the wretched woman who entrapped me; but you will find all that out in time, and try to recompense me for the early miseries of my life, and for your cruel coldness now. There, I have nearly done. I have gambled over this, my child, and I have won, so far as obtaining my prize. To obtain its full enjoyment, I have treated you as I have since you have been here, during which time I have taught you to love me as a friend and father. I am going to teach you to love me now as a husband--a far easier task." "No!" she cried, angrily. "I would sooner die."