Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/274

 part of it was that he had been outwitted by a woman, that he was being defied by a physical weakling, a slender-limbed thing of ribbons and laces whose back he could bend and break across his great knee.

He lurched forward to his feet. His great crouching body seemed drawn towards her by some slow current which he could not control.

"Where's Binhart?" he suddenly gasped, and the explosive tensity of that wheezing cry caused her to look up, startled. He swayed toward her as she did so, swept by some power not his own. There was something leonine in his movement, something leonine in his snarl as he fell on her. He caught her body in his great arms and shook it. He moved without any sense of movement, without any memory of it.

"Where 's Binhart?" he repeated, foolishly, for by this time his great hand had closed on her throat and all power of speech was beyond her. He swung her about and bore her back across the table. She did not struggle. She lay there so passive in his clutch that a