But to-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur
you are! Spy and coward!'
With those last words she moved away. I would have said
something, I could almost have found it in my heart to stop her
and make her hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was the
stronger, and I might have done with her as I pleased. But she
swept by me so fearlessly, as I might pass some loathsome cripple
on the road, that I stood turned to stone. Without looking at
me, without turning her head to see whether I followed or
remained, or what I did, she went steadily down the track until
the trees and the shadow and the growing darkness hid her grey
figure from me; and I found myself alone.
CHAPTER V
REVENGE
And full of black rage! Had she only reproached me, or,
turning on me in the hour of MY victory, said all that
she had now said in the moment of her own, I could have
borne it. She might have shamed me then, and I might
have taken the shame to myself and forgiven her. But,
as it was, I stood there in the gathering dusk, between
the darkening hedges, baffled, tricked, defeated! And
by a woman! She had pitted her wits against mine, her
woman's will against my experience, and she had come off
the victor.
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