"
Pierre was frowning heavily.
"Do you think you would not be my first care?" he demanded, bracing
himself as the vessel plunged to support her with greater security.
She did not answer. There was a touch of ferocity in the question that
silenced her. The pitching of the yacht threw her against him the next
moment, and her feet slipped from beneath her.
Unconsciously almost she turned and clung to the arms that held her up.
They tightened about her to a grip that made her gasp for breath. He
lifted her back to the foothold she had lost. His face was more grimly
set than she had ever seen it.
She wondered if he was secretly afraid. For they seemed to be sinking
down, down, down into the depths of destruction, and only his close
holding kept her where she was.
She thought that they were going straight to the bottom, and
involuntarily her clinging hands held faster. Involuntarily, too, she
raised her eyes to his, seeking, as the human soul is bound to seek, for
human comradeship in face of mortal danger.
But the next instant she knew that no thought of danger was in his mind,
or if it existed it was obscured by something infinitely greater.
His eyes saw her and her only. The fierce flame of his passion blazed
down upon her, searing its terrible way to her soul, dazzling her,
hypnotising her, till she could see nought else, could feel nought but
the burning intensity of the fire that had kindled so suddenly about
her.
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