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.
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