Chapter XLVIII. The Moment

The Shuttle

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

In the unnatural unbearableness of her anguish, she lost sight of
objects as she passed them, she lost all memory of what she did. She
did not know how long she had been out, or how far she had ridden.
When the thought of time or distance vaguely flitted across her mind,
it seemed that she had been riding for hours, and might have crossed
one county and entered another. She had long left familiar places
behind. Riding through and inclosed by the mist, she, herself, might
have been a wandering ghost, lost in unknown places. Where was he
now--where was he now?

Afterwards she could not tell how or when it was that she found
herself becoming conscious of the evidences that her horse had been
ridden too long and hard, and that he was worn out with fatigue. She
did not know that she had ridden round and round over the marshes,
and had passed several times through the same lanes. Childe Harold,
the sure of foot, actually stumbled, out of sheer weariness of limb.
Perhaps it was this which brought her back to earth, and led her to
look around her with eyes which saw material objects with
comprehension. She had reached the lonely places, indeed and the
evening was drawing on. She was at the edge of the marsh, and the
land about her was strange to her and desolate. At the side of a
steep lane, overgrown with grass, and seeming a mere cart-path, stood
a deserted-looking, black and white, timbered cottage, which was half
a ruin. Close to it was a dripping spinney, its trees forming a
darkling background to the tumble-down house, whose thatch was
rotting into holes, and its walls sagging forward perilously. The
bit of garden about it was neglected and untidy, here and there
windows were broken, and stuffed with pieces of ragged garments.
Altogether a sinister and repellent place enough.

She looked at it with heavy eyes. (Where was he now-- where was
he now?--This repeating itself in the far chambers of her brain.)
Her sight seemed dimmed, not only by the mist, but by a sinking
faintness which possessed her. She did not remember how little food
she had eaten during more than twenty-four hours. Her habit was
heavy with moisture, and clung to her body; she was conscious of a
hot tremor passing over her, and saw that her hands shook as they
held the bridle on which they had lost their grip. She had never
fainted in her life, and she was not going to faint now--women did
not faint in these days--but she must reach the cottage and dismount,
to rest under shelter for a short time. No smoke was rising from the
chimney, but surely someone was living in the place, and could tell
her where she was, and give her at least water for herself and her
horse. Poor beast! how wickedly she must have been riding him, in
her utter absorption in her thoughts. He was wet, not alone with
rain, but with sweat. He snorted out hot, smoking breaths.

She spoke to him, and he moved forward at her command. He was
trembling too. Not more than two hundred yards, and she turned him
into the lane. But it was wet and slippery, and strewn with stones.
His trembling and her uncertain hold on the bridle combined to
produce disaster. He set his foot upon a stone which slid beneath
it, he stumbled, and she could not help him to recover, so he fell,
and only by Heaven's mercy not upon her, with his crushing, big-boned
weight, and she was able to drag herself free of him before he began
to kick, in his humiliated efforts to rise. But he could not rise,
because he was hurt--and when she, herself, got up, she staggered,
and caught at the broken gate, because in her wrenching leap for
safety she had twisted her ankle, and for a moment was in cruel
pain.

When she recovered from her shock sufficiently to be able to
look at the cottage, she saw that it was more of a ruin than it had
seemed, even at a short distance. Its door hung open on broken
hinges, no smoke rose from the chimney, because there was no one
within its walls to light a fire. It was quite empty. Everything
about the place lay in dead and utter silence. In a normal mood she
would have liked the mystery of the situation, and would have set
about planning her way out of her difficulty. But now her mind made
no effort, because normal interest in things had fallen away from
her. She might be twenty miles from Stornham, but the possible fact
did not, at the moment, seem to concern her. (Where is he now--where
is he now?) Childe Harold was trying to rise, despite his hurt, and
his evident determination touched her. He was too proud to lie in
the mire. She limped to him, and tried to steady him by his bridle.
He was not badly injured, though plainly in pain.

"Poor boy, it was my fault," she said to him as he at last
struggled to his feet. "I did not know I was doing it. Poor
boy!"

He turned a velvet dark eye upon her, and nosed her forgivingly
with a warm velvet muzzle, but it was plain that, for the time, he
was done for. They both moved haltingly to the broken gate, and
Betty fastened him to a thorn tree near it, where he stood on three
feet, his fine head drooping.

She pushed the gate open, and went into the house through the
door which hung on its hinges. Once inside, she stood still and
looked about her. If there was silence and desolateness outside,
there was within the deserted place a stillness like the unresponse
of death. It had been long since anyone had lived in the cottage,
but tramps or gipsies had at times passed through it. Dead,
blackened embers lay on the hearth, a bundle of dried grass which had
been slept on was piled in the corner, an empty nail keg and a wooden
box had been drawn before the big chimney place for some wanderer to
sit on when the black embers had been hot and red.

Betty gave one glance around her and sat down upon the box
standing on the bare hearth, her head sinking forward, her hands
falling clasped between her knees, her eyes on the brick floor.

"Where is he now?" broke from her in a loud whisper, whose sound
was mechanical and hollow. "Where is he now?"

And she sat there without moving, while the grey mist from the
marshes crept close about the door and through it and stole about her
feet.

So she sat long--long--in a heavy, far-off dream.

Along the road a man was riding with a lowering, fretted face.
He had come across country on horseback, because to travel by train
meant wearisome stops and changes and endlessly slow journeying,
annoying beyond endurance to those who have not patience to spare.
His ride would have been pleasant enough but for the slow mist-like
rain. Also he had taken a wrong turning, because he did not know the
roads he travelled. The last signpost he had passed, however, had
given him his cue again, and he began to feel something of security.
Confound the rain! The best road was slippery with it, and the haze
of it made a man's mind feel befogged and lowered his spirits
horribly--discouraged him--would worry him into an ill humour even if
he had reason to be in a good one. As for him, he had no reason for
cheerfulness--he never had for the matter of that, and just now----!
What was the matter with his horse? He was lifting his head and
sniffing the damp air restlessly, as if he scented or saw something.
Beasts often seemed to have a sort of second sight--horses
particularly.

What ailed him that he should prick up his ears and snort after
his sniffing the mist! Did he hear anything? Yes, he did, it
seemed. He gave forth suddenly a loud shrill whinny, turning his
head towards a rough lane they were approaching, and immediately from
the vicinity of a deserted-looking cottage behind a hedge came a
sharp but mournful-sounding neigh in answer.

"What horse is that?" said Nigel Anstruthers, drawing in at the
entrance to the lane and looking down it. "There is a fine brute
with a side-saddle on," he added sharply. "He is waiting for
someone. What is a woman doing there at this time? Is it a
rendezvous? A good place----"

He broke off short and rode forward. "I'm hanged if it is not
Childe Harold," he broke out, and he had no sooner assured himself of
the fact than he threw himself from his saddle, tethered his horse
and strode up the path to the broken- hinged door.

He stood on the threshold and stared. What a hole it was-- what
a hole! And there she sat--alone--eighteen or twenty miles from
home--on a turned-up box near the black embers, her hands clasped
loosely between her knees, her face rather awful, her eyes staring at
the floor, as if she did not see it.

"Where is he now?" he heard her whisper to herself with soft
weirdness. "Where is he now?"

Sir Nigel stepped into the place and stood before her. He had
smiled with a wry unpleasantness when he had heard her evidently
unconscious words.

"My good girl," he said, "I am sure I do not know where he
is--but it is very evident that he ought to be here, since you have
amiably put yourself to such trouble. It is fortunate for you
perhaps that I am here before him. What does this mean?" the
question breaking from him with savage authority.

He had dragged her back to earth. She sat upright and
recognised him with a hideous sense of shock, but he did not give her
time to speak. His instinct of male fury leaped within him.

"You!" he cried out. "It takes a woman like you to come and
hide herself in a place of this sort, like a trolloping gipsy wench!
It takes a New York millionairess or a Roman empress or one of
Charles the Second's duchesses to plunge as deep as this. You, with
your golden pedestal--you, with your ostentatious airs and
graces--you, with your condescending to give a man a chance to repent
his sins and turn over a new leaf! Damn it," rising to a sort of
frenzy, "what are you doing waiting in a hole like this--in this
weather--at this hour--you --you!"

The fool's flame leaped high enough to make him start forward,
as if to seize her by the shoulder and shake her.

But she rose and stepped back to lean against the side of the
chimney--to brace herself against it, so that she could stand in her
lame foot's despite. Every drop of blood had been swept from her
face, and her eyes looked immense. His coming was a good thing for
her, though she did not know it. It brought her back from unearthly
places. All her child hatred woke and blazed in her. Never had she
hated a thing so, and it set her slow, cold blood running like
something molten.

"Hold your tongue!" she said in a clear, awful young voice of
warning. "And take care not to touch me. If you do--I have my whip
here--I shall lash you across your mouth!"

He broke into ribald laughter. A certain sudden thought which
had cut into him like a knife thrust into flesh drove him on.

"Do!" he cried. "I should like to carry your mark back to
Stornham--and tell people why it was given. I know who you are here
for. Only such fellows ask such things of women. But he was
determined to be safe, if you hid in a ditch. You are here for Mount
Dunstan--and he has failed you!"

But she only stood and stared at him, holding her whip behind
her, knowing that at any moment he might snatch it from her hand.
And she knew how poor a weapon it was. To strike out with it would
only infuriate him and make him a wild beast. And it was becoming an
agony to stand upon her foot. And even if it had not been so--if she
had been strong enough to make a leap and dash past him, her horse
stood outside disabled.

Nigel Anstruthers' eyes ran over her from head to foot, down the
side of her mud-stained habit, while a curious light dawned in
them.

"You have had a fall from your horse," he exclaimed. "You are
lame!" Then quickly, "That was why Childe Harold was trembling and
standing on three feet! By Jove!"

Then he sat down on the nail keg and began to laugh. He laughed
for a full minute, but she saw he did not take his eyes from her.

"You are in as unpleasant a situation as a young woman can well
be," he said, when he stopped. "You came to a dirty hole to be alone
with a man who felt it safest not to keep his appointment. Your
horse stumbled and disabled himself and you. You are twenty miles
from home in a deserted cottage in a lane no one passes down even in
good weather. You are frightened to death and you have given me even
a better story to play with than your sister gave me. By Jove!"

His face was an unholy thing to look upon. The situation and
her powerlessness were exciting him.

"No," she answered, keeping her eyes on his, as she might have
kept them on some wild animal's, "I am not frightened to death."

His ugly dark flush rose.

"Well, if you are not," he said, "don't tell me so. That kind
of defiance is not your best line just now. You have been disdaining
me from magnificent New York heights for some time. Do you think
that I am not enjoying this?"

"I cannot imagine anyone else who would enjoy it so much." And
she knew the answer was daring, but would have made it if he had held
a knife's point at her throat.

He got up, and walking to the door drew it back on its crazy
hinges and managed to shut it close. There was a big wooden bolt
inside and he forced it into its socket.

"Presently I shall go and put the horses into the cowshed," he
said. "If I leave them standing outside they will attract attention.
I do not intend to be disturbed by any gipsy tramp who wants
shelter. I have never had you quite to myself before."

He sat down again and nursed his knee gracefully.

"And I have never seen you look as attractive," biting his under
lip in cynical enjoyment. "To-day's adventure has roused your
emotions and actually beautified you--which was not necessary. I
daresay you have been furious and have cried. Your eyes do not look
like mere eyes, but like splendid blue pools of tears. Perhaps I
shall make you cry sometime, my dear Betty."

"No, you will not."

"Don't tempt me. Women always cry when men annoy them. They
rage, but they cry as well."

"I shall not."

"It's true that most women would have begun to cry before this.
That is what stimulates me. You will swagger to the end. You put
the devil into me. Half an hour ago I was jogging along the road,
languid and bored to extinction. And now----" He laughed outright
in actual exultation. "By Jove!" he cried out. "Things like this
don't happen to a man in these dull days! There's no such luck going
about. We've gone back five hundred years, and we've taken New York
with us." His laugh shut off in the middle, and he got up to thrust
his heavy, congested face close to hers. "Here you are, as safe as
if you were in a feudal castle, and here is your ancient enemy given
his chance--given his chance. Do you think, by the Lord, he is going
to give it up? No. To quote your own words, `you may place entire
confidence in that.' "

Exaggerated as it all was, somehow the melodrama dropped away
from it and left bare, simple, hideous fact for her to confront. The
evil in him had risen rampant and made him lose his head. He might
see his senseless folly to-morrow and know he must pay for it, but he
would not see it to-day. The place was not a feudal castle, but what
he said was insurmountable truth. A ruined cottage on the edge of
miles of marsh land, a seldom-trodden road, and night upon them! A
wind was rising on the marshes now, and making low, steady moan.
Horrible things had happened to women before, one heard of them with
shudders when they were recorded in the newspapers. Only two days
ago she had remembered that sometimes there seemed blunderings in the
great Scheme of things. Was all this real, or was she dreaming that
she stood here at bay, her back against the chimney-wall, and this
degenerate exulting over her, while Rosy was waiting for her at
Stornham--and at this very hour her father was planning his journey
across the Atlantic?

"Why did you not behave yourself?" demanded Nigel Anstruthers,
shaking her by the shoulder. "Why did you not realise that I should
get even with you one day, as sure as you were woman and I was
man?"

She did not shrink back, though the pupils of her eyes dilated.
Was it the wildest thing in the world which happened to her-- or was
it not? Without warning--the sudden rush of a thought, immense and
strange, swept over her body and soul and possessed her--so possessed
her that it changed her pallor to white flame. It was actually
Anstruthers who shrank back a shade because, for the moment, she
looked so near unearthly.

"I am not afraid of you," she said, in a clear, unshaken voice.
"I am not afraid. Something is near me which will stand between
us--something which died to-day."

He almost gasped before the strangeness of it, but caught back
his breath and recovered himself.

"Died to-day! That's recent enough," he jeered. "Let us hear
about it. Who was it?"

"It was Mount Dunstan," she flung at him. "The church- bells
were tolling for him when I rode away. I could not stay to hear
them. It killed me--I loved him. You were right when you said it.
I loved him, though he never knew. I shall always love him--though
he never knew. He knows now. Those who died cannot go away when
that is holding them. They must stay. Because I loved him, he may
be in this place. I call on him----" raising her clear voice. "I
call on him to stand between us."

He backed away from her, staring an evil, enraptured stare.

"What! There is that much temperament in you?" he said. "That
was what I half-suspected when I saw you first. But you have hidden
it well. Now it bursts forth in spite of you. Good Lord! What
luck--what luck!"

He moved to the door and opened it.

"I am a very modern man, and I enjoy this to the utmost," he
said. "What I like best is the melodrama of it--in connection with
Fifth Avenue. I am perfectly aware that you will not discuss this
incident in the future. You are a clever enough young woman to know
that it will be more to your interest than to mine that it shall be
kept exceedingly quiet."

The white fire had not died out of her and she stood
straight.

"What I have called on will be near me, and will stand between
us," she said.

Old though it was, the door was massive and heavy to lift. To
open it cost him some muscular effort.

"I am going to the horses now," he explained before he dragged
it back into its frame and shut her in. "It is safe enough to leave
you here. You will stay where you are."

He felt himself secure in leaving her because he believed she
could not move, and because his arrogance made it impossible for him
to count on strength and endurance greater than his own. Of
endurance he knew nothing and in his keen and cynical exultance his
devil made a fool of him.

As she heard him walk down the path to the gate, Betty stood
amazed at his lack of comprehension of her.

"He thinks I will stay here. He absolutely thinks I will wait
until he comes back," she whispered to the emptiness of the bare
room.

Before he had arrived she had loosened her boot, and now she
stooped and touched her foot.

"If I were safe at home I should think I could not walk, but I
can walk now--I can--I can--because I will bear the pain."

In such cottages there is always a door opening outside from the
little bricked kitchen, where the copper stands. She would reach
that, and, passing through, would close it behind her. After that
something would tell her what to do--something would lead her.

She put her lame foot upon the floor, and rested some of her
weight upon it--not all. A jagged pain shot up from it through her
whole side it seemed, and, for an instant, she swayed and ground her
teeth.

"That is because it is the first step," she said. "But if I am
to be killed, I will die in the open--I will die in the open."

The second and third steps brought cold sweat out upon her, but
she told herself that the fourth was not quite so unbearable, and she
stiffened her whole body, and muttered some words while she took a
fifth and sixth which carried her into the tiny back kitchen.

"Father," she said. "Father, think of me now--think of me!
Rosy, love me--love me and pray that I may come home. You--you who
have died, stand very near!"

If her father ever held her safe in his arms again--if she ever
awoke from this nightmare, it would be a thing never to let one's
mind hark back to again--to shut out of memory with iron doors.

The pain had shot up and down, and her forehead was wet by the
time she had reached the small back door. Was it locked or
bolted--was it? She put her hand gently upon the latch and lifted it
without making any sound. Thank God Almighty, it was neither bolted
nor locked, the latch lifted, the door opened, and she slid through
it into the shadow of the grey which was already almost the darkness
of night. Thank God for that, too.

She flattened herself against the outside wall and listened. He
was having difficulty in managing Childe Harold, who snorted and
pulled back, offended and made rebellious by his savagely impatient
hand. Good Childe Harold, good boy! She could see the massed
outline of the trees of the spinney. If she could bear this long
enough to get there--even if she crawled part of the way. Then it
darted through her mind that he would guess that she would be sure to
make for its cover, and that he would go there first to search.

"Father, think for me--you were so quick to think!" her brain
cried out for her, as if she was speaking to one who could physically
hear.

She almost feared she had spoken aloud, and the thought which
flashed upon her like lightning seemed to be an answer given. He
would be convinced that she would at once try to get away from the
house. If she kept near it--somewhere-- somewhere quite close, and
let him search the spinney, she might get away to its cover after he
gave up the search and came back. The jagged pain had settled in a
sort of impossible anguish, and once or twice she felt sick. But she
would die in the open--and she knew Rosalie was frightened by her
absence, and was praying for her. Prayers counted and, yet, they had
all prayed yesterday.

"If I were not very strong, I should faint," she thought. "But
I have been strong all my life. That great French doctor--I have
forgotten his name--said that I had the physique to endure
anything."

She said these things that she might gain steadiness and
convince herself that she was not merely living through a nightmare.
Twice she moved her foot suddenly because she found herself in a
momentary respite from pain, beginning to believe that the thing was
a nightmare--that nothing mattered--because she would wake up
presently--so she need not try to hide.

"But in a nightmare one has no pain. It is real and I must go
somewhere," she said, after the foot was moved. Where could she go?
She had not looked at the place as she rode up. She had only
half-consciously seen the spinney. Nigel was swearing at the horses.
Having got Childe Harold into the shed, there seemed to be nothing
to fasten his bridle to. And he had yet to bring his own horse in
and secure him. She must get away somewhere before the delay was
over.

How dark it was growing! Thank God for that again! What was
the rather high, dark object she could trace in the dimness near the
hedge? It was sharply pointed, is if it were a narrow tent. Her
heart began to beat like a drum as she recalled something. It was
the shape of the sort of wigwam structure made of hop poles, after
they were taken from the fields. If there was space between it and
the hedge--even a narrow space--and she could crouch there? Nigel
was furious because Childe Harold was backing, plunging, and snorting
dangerously. She halted forward, shutting her teeth in her terrible
pain. She could scarcely see, and did not recognise that near the
wigwam was a pile of hop poles laid on top of each other
horizontally. It was not quite as high as the hedge whose dark
background prevented its being seen. Only a few steps more. No, she
was awake--in a nightmare one felt only terror, not pain.

"You, who died to-day," she murmured.

She saw the horizontal poles too late. One of them had rolled
from its place and lay on the ground, and she trod on it, was thrown
forward against the heap, and, in her blind effort to recover
herself, slipped and fell into a narrow, grassed hollow behind it,
clutching at the hedge. The great French doctor had not been quite
right. For the first time in her life she felt herself sinking into
bottomless darkness--which was what happened to people when they
fainted.

When she opened her eyes she could see nothing, because on one
side of her rose the low mass of the hop poles, and on the other was
the long-untrimmed hedge, which had thrown out a thick, sheltering
growth and curved above her like a penthouse. Was she awakening,
after all? No, because the pain was awakening with her, and she
could hear, what seemed at first to be quite loud sounds. She could
not have been unconscious long, for she almost immediately recognised
that they were the echo of a man's hurried foot- steps upon the bare
wooden stairway, leading to the bedrooms in the empty house. Having
secured the horses, Nigel had returned to the cottage, and, finding
her gone had rushed to the upper floor in search of her. He was
calling her name angrily, his voice resounding in the emptiness of
the rooms.

"Betty; don't play the fool with me!"

She cautiously drew herself further under cover, making sure
that no end of her habit remained in sight. The over- growth of the
hedge was her salvation. If she had seen the spot by daylight, she
would not have thought it a possible place of concealment.

Once she had read an account of a woman's frantic flight from a
murderer who was hunting her to her death, while she slipped from one
poor hiding place to another, sometimes crouching behind walls or
bushes, sometimes lying flat in long grass, once wading waist-deep
through a stream, and at last finding a miserable little fastness,
where she hid shivering for hours, until her enemy gave up his
search. One never felt the reality of such histories, but there was
actually a sort of parallel in this. Mad and crude things were let
loose, and the world of ordinary life seemed thousands of miles
away.

She held her breath, for he was leaving the house by the front
door. She heard his footsteps on the bricked path, and then in the
lane. He went to the road, and the sound of his feet died away for a
few moments. Then she heard them returning--he was back in the
lane--on the brick path, and stood listening or, perhaps, reflecting.
He muttered something exclamatory, and she heard a match struck, and
shortly afterwards he moved across the garden patch towards the
little spinney. He had thought of it, as she had believed he would.
He would not think of this place, and in the end he might get tired
or awakened to a sense of his lurid folly, and realise that it would
be safer for him to go back to Stornham with some clever lie,
trusting to his belief that there existed no girl but would shrink
from telling such a story in connection with a man who would brazenly
deny it with contemptuous dramatic detail. If he would but decide on
this, she would be safe--and it would be so like him that she dared
to hope. But, if he did not, she would lie close, even if she must
wait until morning, when some labourer's cart would surely pass, and
she would hear it jolting, and drag herself out, and call aloud in
such a way that no man could be deaf. There was more room under her
hedge than she had thought, and she found that she could sit up, by
clasping her knees and bending her head, while she listened to every
sound, even to the rustle of the grass in the wind sweeping across
the marsh.

She moved very gradually and slowly, and had just settled into
utter motionlessness when she realised that he was coming back
through the garden--the straggling currant and gooseberry bushes were
being trampled through.

"Betty, go home," Rosalie had pleaded. "Go home--go home." And
she had refused, because she could not desert her.

She held her breath and pressed her hand against her side,
because her heart beat, as it seemed to her, with an actual sound.
He moved with unsteady steps from one point to another, more than
once he stumbled, and his angry oath reached her; at last he was so
near her hiding place that his short hard breathing was a distinct
sound. A moment later he spoke, raising his voice, which fact
brought to her a rush of relief, through its signifying that he had
not even guessed her nearness.

"My dear Betty," he said, "you have the pluck of the devil, but
circumstances are too much for you. You are not on the road, and I
have been through the spinney. Mere logic convinces me that you
cannot be far away. You may as well give the thing up. It will be
better for you."

"You who died to-day--do not leave me," was Betty's inward cry,
and she dropped her face on her knees.

"I am not a pleasant-tempered fellow, as you know, and I am
losing my hold on myself. The wind is blowing the mist away, and
there will be a moon. I shall find you, my good girl, in half an
hour's time--and then we shall be jolly well even."

She had not dropped her whip, and she held it tight. If, when
the moonlight revealed the pile of hop poles to him, he suspected and
sprang at them to tear them away, she would be given strength to make
one spring, even in her agony, and she would strike at his
eyes--awfully, without one touch of compunction--she would
strike--strike.

There was a brief silence, and then a match was struck again,
and almost immediately she inhaled the fragrance of an excellent
cigar.

"I am going to have a comfortable smoke and stroll about
--always within sight and hearing. I daresay you are watching me,
and wondering what will happen when I discover you, I can tell you
what will happen. You are not a hysterical girl, but you will go
into hysterics--and no one will hear you."

(All the power of her--body and soul--in one leap on him and
then a lash that would cut to the bone. And it was not a
nightmare--and Rosy was at Stornham, and her father looking over
steamer lists and choosing his staterooms.)

He walked about slowly, the scent of his cigar floating behind
him. She noticed, as she had done more than once before, that he
seemed to slightly drag one foot, and she wondered why. The wind was
blowing the mist away, and there was a faint growing of light. The
moon was not full, but young, and yet it would make a difference.
But the upper part of the hedge grew thick and close to the heap of
wood, and, but for her fall, she would never have dreamed of the
refuge.

She could only guess at his movements, but his footsteps gave
some clue. He was examining the ground in as far as the darkness
would allow. He went into the shed and round about it, he opened the
door of the tiny coal lodge, and looked again into the small back
kitchen. He came near--nearer --so near once that, bending sidewise,
she could have put out a hand and touched him. He stood quite still,
then made a step or so away, stood still again, and burst into a
laugh once more.

"Oh, you are here, are you?" he said. "You are a fine big girl
to be able to crowd yourself into a place like that!"

Hot and cold dew stood out on her forehead and made her hair
damp as she held her whip hard.

"Come out, my dear!" alluringly. "It is not too soon. Or do
you prefer that I should assist you?"

Her heart stood quite still--quite. He was standing by the
wigwam of hop poles and thought she had hidden herself inside it.
Her place under the hedge he had not even glanced at.

She knew he bent down and thrust his arm into the wigwam, for
his fury at the result expressed itself plainly enough. That he had
made a fool of himself was worse to him than all else. He actually
wheeled about and strode away to the house.

Because minutes seemed hours, she thought he was gone long, but
he was not away for twenty minutes. He had, in fact, gone into the
bare front room again, and sitting upon the box near the hearth, let
his head drop in his hands and remained in this position thinking.
In the end he got up and went out to the shed where he had left the
horses.

Betty was feeling that before long she might find herself making
that strange swoop into the darkness of space again, and that it did
not matter much, as one apparently lay quite still when one was
unconscious--when she heard that one horse was being led out into the
lane. What did that mean? Had he got tired of the chase--as the
other man did--and was he going away because discomfort and fatigue
had cooled and disgusted him--perhaps even made him feel that he was
playing the part of a sensational idiot who was laying himself open
to derision? That would be like him, too.

Presently she heard his footsteps once more, but he did not come
as near her as before--in fact, he stood at some yards' distance when
he stopped and spoke--in quite a new manner.

"Betty," his tone was even cynically cool, "I shall stalk you no
more. The chase is at an end. I think I have taken all out of you I
intended to. Perhaps it was a bad joke and was carried too far. I
wanted to prove to you that there were circumstances which might be
too much even for a young woman from New York. I have done it. Do
you suppose I am such a fool as to bring myself within reach of the
law? I am going away and will send assistance to you from the next
house I pass. I have left some matches and a few broken sticks on
the hearth in the cottage. Be a sensible girl. Limp in there and
build yourself a fire as soon as you hear me gallop away. You must
be chilled through. Now I am going."

He tramped across the bit of garden, down the brick path,
mounted his horse and put it to a gallop at once. Clack, clack,
clack--clacking fainter and fainter into the distance--and he was
gone.

When she realised that the thing was true, the effect upon her
of her sense of relief was that the growing likelihood of a second
swoop into darkness died away, but one curious sob lifted her chest
as she leaned back against the rough growth behind her. As she
changed her position for a better one she felt the jagged pain again
and knew that in the tenseness of her terror she had actually for
some time felt next to nothing of her hurt. She had not even been
cold, for the hedge behind and over her and the barricade before had
protected her from both wind and rain. The grass beneath her was not
damp for the same reason. The weary thought rose in her mind that
she might even lie down and sleep. But she pulled herself together
and told herself that this was like the temptation of believing in
the nightmare. He was gone, and she had a respite--but was it to be
anything more? She did not make any attempt to leave her place of
concealment, remembering the strange things she had learned in
watching him, and the strange terror in which Rosalie lived.

"One never knows what he will do next; I will not stir," she
said through her teeth. "No, I will not stir from here."

And she did not, but sat still, while the pain came back to her
body and the anguish to her heart--and sometimes such heaviness that
her head dropped forward upon her knees again, and she fell into a
stupefied half-doze.

From one such doze she awakened with a start, hearing a slight
click of the gate. After it, there were several seconds of dead
silence. It was the slightness of the click which was startling--if
it had not been caused by the wind, it had been caused by someone's
having cautiously moved it--and this someone wishing to make a
soundless approach had immediately stood still and was waiting.
There was only one person who would do that. By this time, the mist
being blown away, the light of the moon began to make a growing
clearness. She lifted her hand and delicately held aside a few twigs
that she might look out.

She had been quite right in deciding not to move. Nigel
Anstruthers had come back, and after his pause turned, and avoiding
the brick path, stole over the grass to the cottage door. His going
had merely been an inspiration to trap her, and the wood and matches
had been intended to make a beacon light for him. That was like him,
as well. His horse he had left down the road.

But the relief of his absence had been good for her, and she was
able to check the shuddering fit which threatened her for a moment.
The next, her ears awoke to a new sound. Something was stumbling
heavily about the patch of garden--some animal. A cropping of grass,
a snorting breath, and more stumbling hoofs, and she knew that Childe
Harold had managed to loosen his bridle and limp out of the shed.
The mere sense of his nearness seemed a sort of protection.

He had limped and stumbled to the front part of the garden
before Nigel heard him. When he did hear, he came out of the house
in the humour of a man the inflaming of whose mood has been
cumulative; Childe Harold's temper also was not to be trifled with.
He threw up his head, swinging the bridle out of reach; he snorted,
and even reared with an ugly lashing of his forefeet.

"Good boy!" whispered Betty. "Do not let him take you --do
not!"

If he remained where he was he would attract attention if anyone
passed by. "Fight, Childe Harold, be as vicious as you choose--do
not allow yourself to be dragged back."

And fight he did, with an ugliness of temper he had never shown
before--with snortings and tossed head and lashed--out heels, as if
he knew he was fighting to gain time and with a purpose.

But in the midst of the struggle Nigel Anstruthers stopped
suddenly. He had stumbled again, and risen raging and stained with
damp earth. Now he stood still, panting for breath--as still as he
had stood after the click of the gate. Was he--listening? What was
he listening to? Had she moved in her excitement, and was it
possible he had caught the sound? No, he was listening to something
else. Far up the road it echoed, but coming nearer every moment, and
very fast. Another horse--a big one--galloping hard. Whosoever it
was would pass this place; it could only be a man--God grant that he
would not go by so quickly that his attention would not be arrested
by a shriek! Cry out she must--and if he did not hear and went
galloping on his way she would have betrayed herself and be lost.

She bit off a groan by biting her lip.

"You who died to-day--now--now!"

Nearer and nearer. No human creature could pass by a thing like
this--it would not be possible. And Childe Harold, backing and
fighting, scented the other horse and neighed fiercely and high. The
rider was slackening his pace; he was near the lane. He had turned
into it and stopped. Now for her one frantic cry--but before she
could gather power to give it forth, the man who had stopped had
flung himself from his saddle and was inside the garden speaking. A
big voice and a clear one, with a ringing tone of authority.

"What are you doing here? And what is the matter with Miss
Vanderpoel's horse?" it called out.

Now there was danger of the swoop into the darkness-- great
danger--though she clutched at the hedge that she might feel its
thorns and hold herself to the earth.

"You!" Nigel Anstruthers cried out. "You!" and flung forth a
shout of laughter.

"Where is she?" fiercely. "Lady Anstruthers is terrified. We
have been searching for hours. Only just now I heard on the marsh
that she had been seen to ride this way. Where is she, I say?"

A strong, angry, earthly voice--not part of the melodrama-- not
part of a dream, but a voice she knew, and whose sound caused her
heart to leap to her throat, while she trembled from head to foot,
and a light, cold dampness broke forth on her skin. Something had
been a dream--her wild, desolate ride-- the slew tolling; for the
voice which commanded with such human fierceness was that of the man
for whom the heavy bell had struck forth from the church tower.

Sir Nigel recovered himself brilliantly. Not that he did not
recognise that he had been a fool again and was in a nasty place; but
it was not for the first time in his life, and he had learned how to
brazen himself out of nasty places.

"My dear Mount Dunstan," he answered with tolerant irritation,
"I have been having a devil of a time with female hysterics. She
heard the bell toll and ran away with the idea that it was for you,
and paid you the compliment of losing her head. I came on her here
when she had ridden her horse half to death and they had both come a
cropper. Confound women's hysterics! I could do nothing with her.
When I left her for a moment she ran away and hid herself. She is
concealed somewhere on the place or has limped off on to the marsh.
I wish some New York millionairess would work herself into hysteria
on my humble account."

"Those are lies," Mount Dunstan answered--"every damned one of
them!"

He wheeled around to look about him, attracted by a sound, and
in the clearing moonlight saw a figure approaching which might have
risen from the earth, so far as he could guess where it had come
from. He strode over to it, and it was Betty Vanderpoel, holding her
whip in a clenched hand and showing to his eagerness such hunted face
and eyes as were barely human. He caught her unsteadiness to support
it, and felt her fingers clutch at the tweed of his coatsleeve and
move there as if the mere feeling of its rough texture brought
heavenly comfort to her and gave her strength.

"Yes, they are lies, Lord Mount Dunstan," she panted. "He said
that he meant to get what he called `even' with me. He told me I
could not get away from him and that no one would hear me if I cried
out for help. I have hidden like some hunted animal." Her shaking
voice broke, and she held the cloth of his sleeve tightly. "You are
alive--alive!" with a sudden sweet wildness. "But it is true the
bell tolled! While I was crouching in the dark I called to you--who
died to-day--to stand between us!"

The man absolutely shuddered from head to foot.

"I was alive, and you see I heard you and came," he answered
hoarsely.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the cottage. Her
cheek felt the enrapturing roughness of his tweed shoulder as he did
it. He laid her down on the couch of hay and turned away.

"Don't move," he said. "I will come back. You are safe."

If there had been more light she would have seen that his jaw
was set like a bulldog's, and there was a red spark in his eyes--a
fearsome one. But though she did not clearly see, she knew, and the
nearness of the last hours swept away all relenting.

Nigel Anstruthers having discreetly waited until the two had
passed into the house, and feeling that a man would be an idiot who
did not remove himself from an atmosphere so highly charged, was
making his way toward the lane and was, indeed, halfway through the
gate when heavy feet were behind him and a grip of ugly strength
wrenched him backward.

"Your horse is cropping the grass where you left him, but you
are not going to him," said a singularly meaning voice. "You are
coming with me."

Anstruthers endeavoured to convince himself that he did not at
that moment turn deadly sick and that the brute would not make an ass
of himself.

"Don't be a bally fool!" he cried out, trying to tear himself
free.

The muscular hand on his shoulder being reinforced by another,
which clutched his collar, dragged him back, stumbling ignominiously
through the gooseberry bushes towards the cart- shed. Betty lying
upon her bed of hay heard the scuffling, mingled with raging and
gasping curses. Childe Harold, lifting his head from his cropping of
the grass, looked after the violently jerking figures and snorted
slightly, snuffing with dilated red nostrils. As a war horse
scenting blood and battle, he was excited.

When Mount Dunstan got his captive into the shed the blood which
had surged in Red Godwyn's veins was up and leaping. Anstruthers,
his collar held by a hand with fingers of iron, writhed about and
turned a livid, ghastly face upon his captor.

"You have twice my strength and half my age, you beast and
devil!" he foamed in a half shriek, and poured forth frightful
blasphemies.

"That counts between man and man, but not between vermin and
executioner," gave back Mount Dunstan.

The heavy whip, flung upward, whistled down through the air,
cutting through cloth and linen as though it would cut through flesh
to bone.

"By God!" shrieked the writhing thing he held, leaping like a
man who has been shot. "Don't do that again! Damn you!" as the
unswerving lash cut down again--again.

What followed would not be good to describe. Betty through the
open door heard wild and awful things--and more than once a sound as
if a dog were howling.

When the thing was over, one of the two--his clothes cut to
ribbons, his torn white linen exposed, lay, a writhing, huddled worm,
hiccoughing frenzied sobs upon the earth in a corner of the
cart-shed. The other man stood over him, breathless and white, but
singularly exalted.

"You won't want your horse to-night, because you can't use him,"
he said. "I shall put Miss Vanderpoel's saddle upon him and ride
with her back to Stornham. You think you are cut to pieces, but you
are not, and you'll get over it. I'll ask you to mark, however, that
if you open your foul mouth to insinuate lies concerning either Lady
Anstruthers or her sister I will do this thing again in public some
day--on the steps of your club--and do it more thoroughly."

He walked into the cottage soon afterwards looking, to Betty
Vanderpoel's eyes, pale and exceptionally big, and also more a man
than it is often given even to the most virile male creature to
look--and he walked to the side of her resting place and stood there
looking down.

"I thought I heard a dog howl," she said.

"You did hear a dog howl," he answered. He said no other word,
and she asked no further question. She knew what he had done, and he
was well aware that she knew it.

There was a long, strangely tense silence. The light of the
moon was growing. She made at first no effort to rise, but lay still
and looked up at him from under splendid lifted lashes, while his own
gaze fell into the depth of hers like a plummet into a deep pool.
This continued for almost a full minute, when he turned quickly away
and walked to the hearth, indrawing a heavy breath.

He could not endure that which beset him; it was unbearable,
because her eyes had maddeningly seemed to ask him some wistful
question. Why did she let her loveliness so call to him. She was
not a trifler who could play with meanings. Perhaps she did not know
what her power was. Sometimes he could believe that beautiful women
did not.

In a few moments, almost before he could reach her, she was
rising, and when she got up she supported herself against the open
door, standing in the moonlight. If he was pale, she was pale also,
and her large eyes would not move from his face, so drawing him that
he could not keep away from her.

"Listen," he broke out suddenly. "Penzance told me-- warned
me--that some time a moment would come which would be stronger than
all else in a man--than all else in the world. It has come now. Let
me take you home."

"Than what else?" she said slowly, and became even paler than
before.

He strove to release himself from the possession of the moment,
and in his struggle answered with a sort of savagery.

"Than scruple--than power--even than a man's determination and
decent pride."

"Are you proud?" she half whispered quite brokenly. "I am
not--since I waited for the ringing of the church bell-- since I
heard it toll. After that the world was empty--and it was as empty
of decent pride as of everything else. There was nothing left. I
was the humblest broken thing on earth."

"You!" he gasped. "Do you know I think I shall go mad directly
perhaps it is happening now. You were humble and broken--your world
was empty! Because----?"

"Look at me, Lord Mount Dunstan," and the sweetest voice in the
world was a tender, wild little cry to him. "Oh look at me!"

He caught her out-thrown hands and looked down into the
beautiful passionate soul of her. The moment had come, and the tidal
wave rising to its height swept all the common earth away when, with
a savage sob, he caught and held her close and hard against that
which thudded racing in his breast.

And they stood and swayed together, folded in each other's arms,
while the wind from the marshes lifted its voice like an exulting
human thing as it swept about them.