nd
leaped forward, feeling the jab of spurs in its sides. It ran away
indignantly for quite a mile. Then Loring pulled it in, and again they
subsided to a dawdling foot pace.

The spurs had been jabbed into Poor Aleck because Loring had suddenly
thought of Cuthbridge's too red mouth under its too black moustache....
Of this mouth and of Belinda's....

"Engaged"!... The little devil!... So this was her way of paying him
off!... The callous, revengeful little devil!... But then it couldn't be
allowed.... He knew too much about Lewis Cuthbridge to think for a
moment of allowing him to marry one of the women of his family....
Belinda might not be a blood-relation, but that made no difference. It
must be put a stop to--at once--at once! He would write his mother. His
head spun. He felt as though some one had his brain in a sling and were
whirling it round and round.

When he reached the house, he went up to his own room, locked the door,
and, dropping into a chair, pulled out the crushed letter and read it
over. Then he jumped up and began striding to and fro in a blind fury.
The crash of a chair that he flung out of his way startled him into
self-realisation. He recalled Griffeth's warning after that last
outbreak in Newport, and sat down again, battling for self-control. And
boiling up in him with his wild rage came the old, mad passion for the
girl. Those lips--those lips that he had made his own at such
cost!--given to that low blackguard!... Pah! The things he knew of the
brute!... And now ... now.... Perhaps at this very minute.... Oh, he
understood how men could beat women!... He could have dragged Belinda
out of that hound's arms by the hair of her head--and beaten her with
his fists!... He remembered Griffeth's words again, and again got some
sort of hold upon himself....

Morals are more a matter of geography than we like to admit. Loring, an
indifferent member of Christianised society, would have made a very
respectable Mohammedan.

* * * * *

He withstood for two days the gnawing, racking desire to go and see for
himself just "how things were." Then he gave in. He told Sophy that he
had decided to go away and think over this crisis between them by
himself. Sophy, who had also heard from Mrs. Loring of Belinda's
engagement, understood quite well why he was leaving so suddenly.
Something in her was glad and sad both at this knowledge. "It is the
end," she thought. And endings