Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/184

178 felt ashamed of her act of treachery, that she writhed beneath his taunts.

"Let me go," cried she, suddenly. "You—you Damn it, you hurt me!"

Unfeminine as the reproach was, Tregenna was not unaffected by it. Not a very lovely or lovable side of a woman's nature was this that she was revealing to him; but a woman's it was for all that.

"Well," said he, after a moment's pause, "I will let you go."

"You'll trust me?" cried she, quite eagerly.

"No," retorted he, coolly. "I won't trust you. But I can trust to my own limbs to hold my own in a struggle with you."

And he released her. She sprang up, drew back her shirt-sleeves, and looked at the red marks on her wrists.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," said Tregenna.

"So am not I," retorted Ann. "I'll show these marks to my kinsmen, my comrades; 'twill spur their spirits to see I have been so used."

"Egad, they need but little spurring! And in truth you would do better, if you care for