Having arranged the mirror to my satisfaction, I picked up the chair and placed it just behind Alice, sat down on it, and worked myself forward on it till Alice again stood between my legs, but this time with her back to me. The mirror faithfully reflected my movements and her feminine intuition warned her that the front of her person was now about to become the object of my indecent assault.

But I did not give her time to think. Quickly I encircled her waist again with my arms, drew her to me till her bottom pressed against my chest, then, while my left arm held her firmly, my right hand began to wander over the junction of her stomach and legs, pressing inquisitively her groin and thighs, and intently watching her in the mirror.

Her colour rose, her breath came unevenly, she quivered and trembled on her legs as she pressed her thighs closely together. She was horribly perturbed, but I do not think she anticipated what then happened.

Quietly dropping my hands, I slipped them under her clothes, caught hold of her ankles, then proceeded to climb up her legs over her stockings.

‘No! no! for God’s sake, don’t Jack!’ Alice yelled, now scarlet with shame and wild with alarm at this invasion of her most secret parts. Frantically she dragged at her fastenings, her hands clenched, her head thrown back, her eyes dilated with horror. Throwing the whole of her weight on her wrists, she strove to free her legs from my attacking hands by kicking out desperately, but to no avail. The sight in the mirror of her struggles only stimulated me into a refinement of cruelty, for with one hand, I raised her clothes waist high, exposing her in her dainty drawers and black silk stockings, while with the other, I vigorously attacked her thighs over her drawers, forcing a way between them and finally working up so close to her mount of Venus that Alice practically collapsed in an agony of apprehension and would have fallen had it not been for the sustaining ropes which alone supported her as she hung in a semi-hysterical faint.