leonard dozed a little, but he did not sleep. a leaden weariness was in his limbs, but his heart and brain were horribly active, forbidding rest. his heart was full of rage, and his brain was full of images—he could doze only till these last crystallised in dreams, when their vividness woke him up at once. he woke each time with a start and a vague feeling of uneasiness and alarm. he feared he was going to be ill—just when janey needed him so badly. he must bear up till to-morrow; by then she would be better, to-night she was helpless without him. he looked at the cramped figure on the bed, and his throat tightened with sorrow, shame and rage.
she should be avenged—he swore it. lowe should be made to realise that it was not with impunity that one dragged women like janey into the mud and then climbed out over their shoulders. he should be made to grovel to her and implore her forgiveness. len had not quite settled his course of action, but he had fixed the results. lowe was a worm, a miserable, loathly, little, wriggling worm, and he had slimed a lily—he should squirm under a decent man's boot....
the room darkened. the curtains, fluttering in the dusk-wind, were like ghosts. the line of woods on the horizon became dim, and an owl[pg 238] called from them suddenly. then a procession of clouds began to flit solemnly across the window—driven from the south-west. they were brown against the bottomless grey, and there was a kind of majestic rhythm in their march before the wind.
len rose with a shudder—somehow he could not sit still. he went to the window and looked out. then he remembered that he had not shut in the fowls for the night or stalled the cows. he would have to leave janey for a little and attend to the farm. he stepped back and looked at her. her bed was in darkness, and all he could see was a long, black mass on the paleness of the bed-clothes. she was sleeping heavily, with quick, stertorous breathing, and it was not likely that she would wake for some time—he had certainly better go now, while she slept so well.
he crept quietly from the room and down the dark stairs. outside the breeze puffed healingly upon him, cooling him with a sweet dampness as he climbed into the stream-field where the cows were pastured. the mists were too high and clammy for them to be left out at night, and the man had gone home after milking them. he called to them softly, and great shadows began to move out of the fogs towards him. the peace of the twilight and of his work with the calm, milk-smelling beasts, was so great that, in spite of rage and suffering, a kind of dreamy comfort came to len—a quiet he felt only in the fields. he began to whistle as he drove the cows home before him. then suddenly the whistling made him remember nigel's concert.
[pg 239]
he had meant to send off a second telegram, which nigel would receive just before he went on the platform at the bechstein. the last shattering hour had made him forget his plan, and he realised that if his brother was to have his message of good-cheer it must be sent at once. but how? there was still time, but he could not leave the house, even on such an errand—and yet his brother must be "bucked up" at all costs. to-morrow he would send another wire, asking him to come down for the week-end, but he thought it as well not to risk alarming him to-night. len pondered a minute, then suddenly it occurred to him that he could give his telegram to the postman, who was due to pass sparrow hall on his way back from his round. by a lucky chance there was a telegraph-form in the house; len filled it in, and then ran out with it to the lane.
he looked up at janey's window—all was quiet, only the white curtains fluttered out on the wind; anyhow he would hear if she woke and called him. the lane was very dark—the sky was still faintly light above it, but night had fallen between the hedges. he heard footsteps, and saw a figure coming down wilderwick hill.
"hullo, winkworth!" he cried, "i want you to do something for me."
he stepped out into the middle of the lane, and at the same time the figure began to climb the stile into wilderwick meadows.
"hi!" shouted len—he suddenly realised that on fine dry nights the postman would take the field-path to dormans.
[pg 240]
"hi!" he shouted, running after him. "winkworth!—i've a——".
the words died on his tongue. he had reached the stile, and saw standing on the further side of it, on the high ground which the darkness had not reached—with the last of the western light upon his face—quentin lowe.
for a moment both men stared at each other, then lowe moved away. len stood stock still, a queer grimace on his features.
"were you calling me, sir?"
a voice behind him made him start. the postman had come out of the darkness and stood at his elbow.
"i thought i heard you shout 'winkworth' when i was far up the hill. anything you want, mus' furlonger?"
"yes—yes—would you take this telegram to dormans, and see it sent off? here's a bob...."
his voice sounded vague, somehow, as if it were a mechanical process unconnected with his real self. he stood watching the old postman as he climbed the stile and took the turning for dormans, where the track divided. a minute later a figure became silhouetted against the sky on his right; the path to cowden and the valley farms dipped abruptly a few yards beyond the stile, then climbed to the high grounds near goatsluck wood. quentin lowe was clearly visible as he hurried away towards kent—almost as if he feared pursuit.
leonard stared after him, his eyes bright with hate and fever. a kind of delirium was in his[pg 241] brain as he watched that thick-set, slouching figure, caricatured into a dwarf by his fury and the cheverel light. then suddenly he bounded forward.
he forgot all about the illness that was creeping over him, and janey alone in the dark house. or rather, he told himself that he would be up with quentin in a minute, and would have settled him in a couple more. he would drag him back to sparrow hall by the scruff of the neck, and janey, poor, outraged janey, should be his judge, and taste triumph even in her despair.
he climbed the stile and ran up the path, plunging recklessly through the tall, ghostly buttercups, glowing faintly in the twilight. he had soon lost the path, a mere borstall, and was trampling the hay-grass, but he did not slack.
quentin had for the moment disappeared. the trees of goatsluck wood waved against the sky: len was conscious of a kind of illusion as he approached them—it seemed as if they were very far away, then suddenly he found himself on the tangled rim of the wood, the boughs shuddering and rustling over him, as he groped his way into the darkness.
he had to run along the hedge till he found the stile, and he realised that lowe now had a good start. but he would not stop, nor defer his vengeance to another, more auspicious, day. janey would probably not wake till the next morning—and meantime his blood was up. he was not quite sure what he should do to quentin when he overtook him—he was not worth killing, that would[pg 242] only mean more sorrow for janey, but he had ideas of pounding him more or less to a jelly and then dragging him back to sparrow hall and making him kiss the ground at janey's feet, and grovel and slobber for her forgiveness, with other humiliations which he did not think for a minute his sister would not enjoy.
meantime he floundered stupidly among the trees. the path was not often used, and the undergrowth had become tangled across it—branches of ash and hazel whipped his cheeks, and brambles caught his feet and sent him stumbling. once he fell full length, with the soft suck of mud under his body, and once he had to stop and fight for his breath which had been knocked out of him by the low bough of an oak. it was very dark in goatsluck wood—like a dark dream. he looked up and saw shuddering patches of sky, and they intensified the strange dream spell, for he seemed to be moving through them, tossed by the wind and scorched by whirling stars.
then suddenly a meadow swam towards him—another meadow full of buttercups, all gleaming faintly in the marriage of twilight and moonlight that revelled over the fields. a soft wind baffed him, and cooled his lips with little drops of rain. he pounded on through the buttercups, thought and self-consciousness both almost swallowed up in the abnormal consciousness of environment that accompanies certain states of fever. he saw the moon hanging low and yellow in the east, he saw long, tangled hedges, and tufts of wood—and all round him, in meadow after meadow, that ceaseless[pg 243] shimmer of buttercups, as the wind puffed through them and bowed them to the moon.
then suddenly he saw quentin lowe. his pace had slackened, for he had not seen furlonger for some minutes, but the next moment he looked over his shoulder and hurried on again.
"stop!" cried leonard.
the figure hunched itself against the wind and plunged on.
"stop!" gasped len, and calling up all his strength broke into a run.
quentin looked back, and saw that he was running. he himself was too proud to run, but he doubled against the hedge, and changing his direction, walked towards langerish, so that len nearly overran him.
but just in time he saw the short, heavy figure groping along the rim of the buttercups, and the chase took a southward direction.
len had not the breath to run far—he wondered vaguely what had winded him. he came panting after quentin, always the same distance behind; he no longer cried "stop!"—just padded gasping after him.
they skirted the meadow known as watch oak, then followed the grass lane to golden pot and the outhouses of anstiel. quentin was trying to work his way back towards kent and the valley of the hammer ponds, but leonard drove him obstinately southwards. he was beginning to gain on him a little. quentin could hear his footsteps, and he knew why he was following him.
[pg 244]
a sick dread was creeping up lowe's back—he looked round at the shuddering woods and that strange sky of storm and stars, and he trembled with the presentiment that he saw them all for the last time. furlonger was a great, big, burly brute—and furlonger would kill him. perhaps, after all, he deserved to die—the country through which he plunged in this horrible death-chase had a reproach in each spinney, a regret in each field. and yet his heart was stiff with defiance—what right had the gods to dangle salvation before a man's eyes, and then slay him when he grasped it? a sob rose in his throat. the gates of paradise had rolled back for him at last—and must he die just inside them?
his defiance grew. he would not be robbed of his salvation. to grasp it he had let go more than he dared think. the gods should not mock him with their gifts—or rather, merchandise. they should not take his awful price, and then deny the goods. life should not suddenly turn and smile on him, and then hurry away. he called after departing life—"i will not let thee go except thou bless me...."
he bent his head and began to run.
then suddenly his mood changed. the power that had steadied his voice and straightened his back during his terrible interview with janey, had not forsaken him now. he loved tony strife, and he was too proud in her love to play the coward. he would not run away from fate. it should not be said of tony's lover that he had died running[pg 245] away. he stopped abruptly, swung round and faced furlonger.
leonard was so surprised at this change of tactics that for a moment he did not speak. he stood staring at lowe, his hands clenched, his muscles taut, his veins boiling and throbbing. the two men faced each other in the corner of a high field known as cowsanish. on one side a hedgerow was whispering with winds, on the other the ground sloped downwards to a ruined outhouse—then it dipped suddenly, and the distance was full of mists, through which could be seen blotches of woods and farmhouse lights. the sky was still wind-swept and scattered with stars.
"what do you want?" asked lowe at last.
leonard mumbled a little before he spoke. "to wring your neck."
"why?"
"you know why."
furlonger's mouth was working with passion, and his eyes were deliriously bright. he really meant to wring lowe's neck. he had forgotten his earlier schemes of vengeance—nothing would suffice him now but the extreme, the uttermost.
lowe folded his arms across his chest, and called up all his memories of tony.
"you want to kill me," he said in a struggling voice, "because of what i've done to janey—but i tell you it's been a blessing to her as well as to me. we were both in the mud together, and now i've got out it'll be easier for her to do so."
"you've blighted her with your damned love!" cried leonard incoherently, "she's half dead, she's[pg 246] in the mud, she's in hell. when you got out, as you call it, you kicked her deeper in."
"but there's no good killing me for it."
"why?"
len asked the question almost lamely. he felt giddy and inert, and quentin's words seemed to be trickling past him somehow—it was a strange feeling he could not quite realise.
"why?—because you'll probably be hanged for it, and that won't do your sister any good. besides"—and here his voice quickened suddenly into passion—"you've no right to kill me for grasping my only chance of salvation."
"damn your salvation!—i'm not going to kill you for getting out of the ditch, but for dragging her into it—janey, my sister, whose shoes you aren't worthy to clean."
lowe quailed for a moment. furlonger's eyes were blazing, and he crouched back as if for a spring.
"there's no good gassing about it," he said thickly, "if i let you talk, you'll talk me stupid. i'm going to wring your neck because you dragged my janey into your own beastly hell, and then when you saw the chance, climbed out over her shoulders, and left her to rot there. she's ill, i tell you—she's half dead—and i'm going to kill you for it."
quentin flung a last imploring look at the silent fields with their waving, whispering grass. the clouds were scattering now, and the sky blazed with stars. the night was full of the scent of hay.... in a moment they would be lost in a black,[pg 247] choking whirl, that sky, those stars—that sweet smell of hay. he sniffed at it. he thought of the huge mown meadow by shovelstrode, where only yesterday he and tony had lounged and played. he heard the voices of the workers, as they turned the great swathes, and shook them on their forks, filling the air with fragrance; he saw tony in a muslin frock, with the white rose he had given her in her breast. he saw the sun on the coils of her mouse-coloured hair—heard her say some little, trivial, slangy thing that had somehow made him kiss her. he remembered that kiss, so sweet, so cool, so calm—and, as he drew back his head, the look of her innocent eyes....
but once more the thought of tony put courage into him. if he must die inside the gates of paradise, he would die worthily of the woman who had opened them to him. for her sake he would die game—it was the only thing he had left to do for her now. he would die with a proud face and a high courage—and his last conscious thought should be of tony, who, if only for a few short days, had allowed him to see what love can be when it comes in white.
he braced himself up, flung back his shoulders, and waited for the attack.
it came.
furlonger sprang forward and seized quentin by the throat. for a moment they swayed together, lowe snatching at the other's hands and struggling with the frenzy of despair. his eyes bulged, his lips blackened, and still he fought. then the[pg 248] darkness began to rush over him—first in little clouds, then in long, black sweeps.
"janey!... janey!" he cried.
he opened his eyes at last. he was lying under the hedge, his cheek scratched, his hands twisted in the grass. he stirred feebly, then sat up, still crouching back against the hazel. furlonger lay prone among the buttercups, his chin turned up sharply, the moonlight blazing on his face. then lowe remembered how things had happened—how the sickening grip on his throat had suddenly relaxed, and he had gone crashing backwards into the brambles, while something fell with a heavy thud at his feet.
he wondered if furlonger was dead. he went and looked into his face. the features were strangely drawn, and there was a look of desperate anxiety in their contraction. then suddenly the eyes opened and looked up into lowe's, full of terror and fever.
"what's happened? who's there? oh, my god!"
remembrance had come with a spasm of that ghastly face. leonard sat up in the grass, and held his hands to his head.
"i'm ill, i think," he muttered.
he must have fainted—fainted through the stress and horror of it all, just when his enemy's breath had nearly sobbed away under his hands.
"you'd better go home," said quentin.
leonard did not speak. he still sat there in a[pg 249] piteous huddle—and then suddenly tremor after tremor began to go through him. he shuddered from head to foot, his teeth chattered, and his limbs shook so that he could not rise.
"i want some water—i want something to drink," he panted.
quentin put his hands under his shoulders to help him get up. he felt quite generously towards him now. he had been snatched by a timely accident from death, and could afford to pity this poor fellow who had tried to kill him, but failed.
"let me help you home."
"no—by god!"
"let me—you're ill."
"yes, i was ill when i started after you—or you wouldn't be alive and grinning at me now. i was a fool—i should have waited. but look out for me another day, you skunk!"
the ghastly rigor choked his last words. the look of terror and anxiety deepened on his face. then at last he managed to stumble up.
"i—i'm going home," he stuttered, and felt sick as he realised he would have to pass again through goatsluck wood.
"and you won't let me go with you?"
"no—i shan't let myself owe you anything, for i mean to kill you some day."
"i advise you not to threaten me—i might be obliged to take proceedings against you."
"a pretty mess you'd be in if you did. i suppose you don't want your new girl to hear about janey?"
[pg 250]
quentin flushed.
"if i wasn't obliged to shield my sister," continued len, "i'd tell that girl myself. but you know my tongue's tied—besides, i'd rather kill you."
"the secret might come out that way too. no, furlonger, if you are wise you'll let me alone."
he drew back a little as he spoke—the friendly reaction was passing. he had always hated janey's brothers, because he was jealous of her love for them; and now, though the original reason was gone, he still hated them for the cause of that reason—for what he believed was the foundation of janey's love, their physical strength and fitness.
however, there was not much of either to be seen in leonard now. he swayed pitifully as he stood there facing quentin, and though his lips moved, no sounds came past them. then he turned away. lowe watched him stagger across the field. he expected him to fall every minute, except once, when for some strange reason he expected him to turn back and confront him again. but he neither fell nor turned. he stumbled blindly on, then disappeared into the next field.
for a moment or two quentin stood alone in the great meadow, under the hurrying sky. the scent of hay no longer blew to him wistfully, but triumphantly, like the fragrance of festal wine. he spread out his arms, and stood there in the quivering, scented hush, while the wind cooled his damp forehead, and ruffled the hair back from it tenderly.
[pg 251]
then he turned homewards from cowsanish.
but he had not gone far before he altered his direction. he struck again southwards, through the grass lanes that wind past old surrey hall, towards shovelstrode. he would lay his thankfulness, his deliverance, his redemption, at tony's feet—at the feet of the woman who symbolised them
