Sitting up she stared at it. She had heard of, but never seen, a tape recorder. As she listened she realized that that was what the box must be and that it was now playing back the sounds it had registered in the room while she had been receiving punishment for her attempt to escape. She heard again her own terrible screams and pleas for mercy, then his voice again, followed by her moans and sobs as she had collapsed upon the bed. The sounds brought flooding back to her the memory of the agony she had suffered, and she shuddered afresh.

When he returned from his shower, he grinned at her and said: 'Just a reminder, honey. Don't try anything you wouldn't like me to know about while I'm on the job today.'

'I won't,' she assured him quickly. 'I've no wish to leave here. I'm enjoying every moment of it.'

'Some moments,' he agreed, his grin becoming a little twisted. 'But yesterday evening I had a feeling that you'd something on your mind. A looker like you couldn't have been running solo before I snatched you. Maybe it's that you've a boy-friend in London that you're getting boiled up to be back with. Guess I'd better fix you proper, so you won't land yourself in no more pain and grief.'

Coming over to her he took her face between his two great hands. His eyes held her like magnets for a minute, then they seemed to grow very large and she heard him say: 'Repeat after me, "I'll not put a foot outside this house except with that big bastard Wash".'

Steeling herself to appear willing, she said the words not once but, at his order, three times; then he released her.

Later in the day she resolved to test the strength of the spell he had put upon her. Having waited until Jim was out of the way she went to a door at the far end of the hall that led to the garden. Opening it she looked out across a lawn to a group of trees; then she told herself that she was going to walk over to them. But she could not. The hypnotic suggestion that he had implanted in her mind held her fast. Strive as she would she could not lift a foot to step out over the door sill.