Then, with an odd sound that might have been a laugh strangled at birth.

Burleigh Wentworth gathered her to his heart and held her there.
"No!" he said.

"No! I want to make you--the happiest woman in the world!" "Too late! Too late!" she whispered.
But he stopped the words upon her lips, passionately, irresistibly, with his own.
"You are mine!" he swore, with his eyes on hers.

"You are mine! No man on earth shall ever take you from me again!".