nd those eyes were filled with death.

Lorna fell across my knees when I was going to kiss her, as the
bridegroom is allowed to do, and encouraged, if he needs it; a flood of
blood came out upon the yellow wood of the altar steps, and at my feet
lay Lorna, trying to tell me some last message out of her faithful eyes.
I lifted her up, and petted her, and coaxed her, but it was no good; the
only sign of life remaining was a spirt of bright red blood.

Some men know what things befall them in the supreme time of their
life--far above the time of death--but to me comes back as a hazy dream,
without any knowledge in it, what I did, or felt, or thought, with my
wife's arms flagging, flagging, around my neck, as I raised her up, and
softly put them there. She sighed a long sigh on my breast, for her last
farewell to life, and then she grew so cold, and cold, that I asked the
time of year.

It was Whit-Tuesday, and the lilacs all in blossom; and why I thought
of the time of year, with the young death in my arms, God or His angels,
may decide, having so strangely given us. Enough that so I did, and
looked; and our white lilacs were beautiful. Then I laid my wife in my
mother's arms, and begging that no one would make a noise, went forth
for my revenge.

Of course, I knew who had done it. There was but one man in the
world, or at any rate, in our part of it, who could have done such a
thing--such a thing. I use no harsher word about it, while I leaped upon
our best horse, with bridle but no saddle, and set the head of Kickums
towards the course now pointed out to me. Who showed me the course, I
cannot tell. I only know that I took it. And the men fell back before
me.

Weapon of no sort had I. Unarmed, and wondering at my strange attire
(with a bridal vest, wrought by our Annie, and red with the blood of the
bride), I went forth just to find out this; whether in this world there
be or be not God of justice.

With my vicious horse at a furious speed, I came upon Black Barrow Down,
directed by some shout of men, which seemed to me but a whisper. And
there, about a furlong before me, rode a man on a great black horse, and
I knew that the man was Carver Doone.

'Your life or mine,' I said to myself; 'as the will of God may be. But
we two live not upon this earth, one more hour together.'

I knew the strength of this great man; and I knew that he was armed with
a gun--if he had time to load again, after shooting my Lorna--or a