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 or yield like a thing offered and sold? She was to have little time to turn it in the fiery tumult of her thoughts.

Thomson took his bitten, flat cigar from his huge hungry mouth; he disposed it carefully on the metal base of the lamp, and leaned over the table slightly, thumbs hooked under it, fingers spread on the dark wood.

"It is the presumption, when two people appear before a properly authorized person, seeking to be legally married, that they do so of their own free will and accord. I take it that such is the case in the present instance, and without further"

"No!" said Alma, her voice rising strongly over the old scoundrel's droning. "You know I'm forced to do it! You could stop it"

"Without further preliminaries, dismissing the usual formula, we will presume, we do presume," Thomson went on, not heeding her, "that you accept each other as man and wife. Take hands. Take her by the hand, Findlay, damn it! Take her hand!"

Findlay turned to face his unwilling bride, offering his right hand. Coldly she laid her left hand in it, clasping it suddenly, with a force that caused Findlay to fix his eyes on her face in questioning surprise.

"I pronounce"

Thomson's words lingered in his vile mouth as Alma, drawing with the strength of her despair on Findlay's hand, snatched at the hidden knife in her bosom.

"Watch her!" Thomson shouted, falling back from the table as if his own life stood in peril.

The guard of the knife caught her shirt as Alma