Mrs.
Pendyce made the crouching movement of one who gathers herself to
spring.
"If you give him up, I shall go to him; I will never come back!"
The Squire's grip on the rail relaxed; in the light of the candle, still
and steady and bright--his jaw could be seen to fall. He snapped his
teeth together, and turning abruptly, said:
"Don't talk such rubbish!"
Then, taking the candle, he went into his dressing-room.
And at first his feelings were simple enough; he had merely that sore
sensation, that sense of raw offence, as at some gross and violent
breach of taste.
'What madness,' he thought, 'gets into women! It would serve her right
if I slept here!'
He looked around him. There was no place where he could sleep, not
even a sofa, and taking up the candle, he moved towards the door. But a
feeling of hesitation and forlornness rising, he knew not whence, made
him pause irresolute before the window.
The young moon, riding low, shot her light upon his still, lean figure,
and in that light it was strange to see how grey he looked--grey from
head to foot, grey, and sad, and old, as though in summary of all the
squires who in turn had looked upon that prospect frosted with young
moonlight to the boundary of their lands. Out in the paddock he saw his
old hunter Bob, with his head turned towards the house; and from the
very bottom of his heart he sighed.
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