ll not stopping.

Gudrun remained staring after them, with a mask-like defiant face.

'Why do you want to drive them mad?' asked Gerald, coming up with her.

She took no notice of him, only averted her face from him. 'It's not
safe, you know,' he persisted. 'They're nasty, when they do turn.'

'Turn where? Turn away?' she mocked loudly.

'No,' he said, 'turn against you.'

'Turn against ME?' she mocked.

He could make nothing of this.

'Anyway, they gored one of the farmer's cows to death, the other day,'
he said.

'What do I care?' she said.

'I cared though,' he replied, 'seeing that they're my cattle.'

'How are they yours! You haven't swallowed them. Give me one of them
now,' she said, holding out her hand.

'You know where they are,' he said, pointing over the hill. 'You can
have one if you'd like it sent to you later on.'

She looked at him inscrutably.

'You think I'm afraid of you and your cattle, don't you?' she asked.

His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on
his face.

'Why should I think that?' he said.

She was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate
eyes. She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light
blow on the face with the back of her hand.

'That's why,' she said, mocking.

And she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence
against him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious
mind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid.

He recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale,
and a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not
speak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched
almost to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as
if some reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped
him.

'You have struck the first blow,' he said at last, forcing the words
from his lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream
within her, not spoken in the outer air.

'And I shall strike the last,' she retorted involuntarily, with
confident assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her.

She stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the
edge of her consciousness the question was asking itself,
automatically:

'Why ARE you behaving in this IMPOSSIBLE and ridiculous fashion.' But
she was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She could