ehead showed doubly
from the total absence of colour in his little gray face; but he got
himself a great draught of water, and, restored by that and by the rush
of rage that swelled all his veins, he flew downstairs, past Joseph in
the hall, who gave an outcry of astonishment, to where the gardener's
boy was still holding his pony outside. Geoff, scarcely able to stand,
what with the shock and what with the emotion, clambered up upon the
pony, and turned its head homewards. The pony was well pleased to find
himself in that way, and obeyed with enthusiasm his little master's
impulse. The small steed and rider flew along the road to Markland.
Geoff had no cap; he was dusty, as if he had been for days on the road;
and as he flew by, the cottagers came out to the doors to look, and said
to each other that the little lord must be mad, that he would have an
accident like his father. He went on thus, with scarcely a pause, till
he reached the gates of Markland, wrath and pain carrying him on at a
swifter rate even than the pony, eager for sympathy and for revenge.

Something stayed this headlong race all at once. It was when he came
within sight of the avenue, which was so bare, which had no trees except
at distant intervals. There he saw a speck upon the way, a slowly moving
figure which he recognised at once. It was his mother, coming down, as
was her wont, to meet--whom? Her husband. Geoff's hot heart, all blazing
with childish rage, sank into a shivering calm at the sight of her. In a
moment he turned from heat to cold, from headlong passion to the chill
of thought and self-sacrifice. Mamma! She it was now who was "delicate,"
as he had been all his life. It might make her ill; it would make her
miserable. What! she who had been everything to him,--was he now going
to seize upon her as Theo had seized him, and shake her and hurt her,
he, her own boy? The child drew up his unwilling pony with a sudden
force which almost carried him over its head. No, he could not do that.
He would not. He would rather be shaken, strangled, thrown down, anything
in the world, rather than hurt mamma. His little heart swelled with a
new spring of impassioned emotion. He would bear it for her sake; he
would bear anything, he did not mind what, rather. He would never, he
cried to himself, with a rush of scalding tears to his eyes, hurt _her_.
He turned the pony's head round with a force of passion which that
astonished animal could not resist, to