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.