Yet it was scarcely of her own volition that she answered him.

"I am--not--yours." Very faintly the words came from her trembling lips, but the utterance of them gave her new strength.

She moved at last in his hold.

She turned her face away from him.
"What do you mean ?" He spoke in a fierce whisper, but--she felt it instinctively--there was less of assurance in his hold.

It was that that added to her strength, but she offered no active resistance, realizing wherein lay his weakness--and her own.
"I mean," she said, and though it still trembled beyond her control, her voice gathered confidence with the words, "that by taking me--by keeping me--you are taking--keeping--what is not your own." "Love gives me the right," he asserted, swiftly--"your love--and mine." But the clearer vision had come to her.