under the soft silk, her chin quivering, and reached out blindly and
took it from him. But the sudden chill of it against her bare breast
seemed to revive the courage that was not yet dead in her. She flung up
her head, the transient colour flaming into her cheeks, and her lips
sprang open, but he drew her to him swiftly, and laid his hand over her
mouth. "I know, I know," he said coldly. "I am a brute and a beast and
a devil. You need not tell me again. It commences to grow tedious." His
hand slipped to her shoulder, his fingers gripping the delicate,
rounded arm. "How much longer are you going to fight? Would it not be
wiser after what you have seen to-day to recognise that I am master?"

"You mean that you will treat me as you treated the colt this
afternoon?" she whispered, her eyes drawn back irresistibly to his in
spite of all her efforts.

"I mean that you must realise that my will is law."

"And if I do not?" He guessed rather than heard the words.

"Then I will teach you, and I think that you will learn--soon."

She quivered in his hands. It was a threat, but how much of it he meant
to be taken literally she did not know. Again every ghastly detail of
the afternoon passed with lightning speed through her mind. When he
punished he punished mercilessly. To what lengths would he go? The Arab
standards were not those of the men amongst whom she had lived. The
position of a woman in the desert was a very precarious one. There were
times when she forgot altogether that he was an Arab until some chance,
as now, drove the hard fact home indisputably. He was an Arab, and as a
woman she need expect no mercy at his hands. His hands! She looked down