“Ohh! What have you done to me? You villain, you brute, you scoundrel! Help!” Marion cried frantically, as she tried to kick her legs and to lift herself out of the chair. But she was pinned as in a vise, and there was no help for her.

“Cry out as much as you like, my dear,” I told her coldly, “the room is padded. It was once used to harbor deranged patients, who could evoke a veritable bedlam with their clamoring and yet go unheard outside these walls. If it pleases you to vent your rancor and your thoroughly spiteful nature by shouting, I shall not make any attempt to stop you. In centuries past, they used to bleed patients possessed of a temper; but I find that your cries and your indignation will help to alleviate some of the hot blood that must be surging in your unfriendly self.”

Evidently no one had ever talked like that to Marion before, for she regarded me with gaping mouth and dilated eyes, while the heaving of her magnificent bosom told me that she was far from being impervious to my gibes. Also, her struggles had rumpled her skirts and petticoats, so that I was able to catch a glimpse of a very well-turned pair of ankles and the most deliciously sleek calves in all the world, calves which could comparably be displayed side by side with those of her delicious sister Alice and not come off second best.

I contemplated her for a few moments, watching her fume and struggle and send murderous looks in my direction. Indeed, if looks had been able to kill, I should not have been able to accomplish my devious purpose with this very tasty and delectable victim. But instead, I nonchalantly strolled over to two of the pillars, and touching the button set in a panel in the wall, lowered a pair of rope-pulleys so that they would be at the proper height when I moved her under them. For I meant to fasten her by the wrists and hoist her and then leisurely proceed at my own discretion and inclination to her disrobing. And it would be even more prolonged and discomfiting to her lofty and indomitable nature than the manner in which I had proceeded with sweet Alice.