a distance,
the last act of the interview between Arthur and Angela.

He had seen him lift her in his arms, kiss her, and place her on the
stone seat, but he did not know that she had fainted. The sight had
roused his evil passions until they raged like the fire he had left.
Then Arthur came out upon him and he made acquaintance with the
bramble-bush as already described. But he was not going to be cheated
out of his revenge; the woman was still left for him to wreak it on.

By the time he reached Angela, her faculties were reawakening; but,
though insensibility had yielded, sense had not returned. She sat upon
the stone seat, upright indeed, but rigid and grasping its angles with
her hands. The dog had gone. In the undecided way common to dogs, when
two people to whom they are equally attached separate, it had at that
moment taken it into its head to run a little way after Arthur.

George marched straight up to her, livid with fury.

"So this is how you go on when your husband is away, is it? I saw you
kissing that young blackguard, though I am not good enough for you.
What, won't you answer? Then it is time that I taught you obedience."

"Swish!" went the heavy whip through the air, and fell across her fair
cheek.

"Will that wake you, eh, or must I repeat the dose?"

The pain of the blow seemed to rouse her. She rose, her loosed hair
falling round her like a golden fleece, and a broad blue stripe across
her ghastly face. She stretched out her hands; she opened her great
eyes, and in them blazed the awful light of madness.

He was standing, whip in hand, with his back to the lake; she faced
him, a breathing, beautiful vengeance, and in a whisper so intense
that the air was full of it, commenced a rambling prayer.

"Oh, God," she said, "bless my dear Arthur! Oh, Almighty Father,
avenge our wrongs!"

She paused and fixed her eyes upon him, and they held him so that he
could not stir. Then, in strange contrast to the hissing whisper,
there broke from her lips a ringing and unearthly laugh that chilled
him to the marrow. So they stood for some seconds.

The sound of angry voices had brought the bulldog back at full speed,
and, at the sight of George's threatening attitude, it halted. It had
always hated him, and now it straightway grew more like a devil than a
dog. The innate fierceness of the great brute awoke; it bristled with
fury till each separate hair stood out in knots against the skin, and
saliva ran