“What else could have been?” she groaned.  “Naught else—­naught else.  ’Twas a trick—­a trick of Fate to ruin me for my punishment.”

When she had gone forth it had been with no hope in her breast that her wit might devise a way to free herself from the thing which so beset her, for she had no weak fancies that there dwelt in this base soul any germ of honour which might lead it to relenting.  As she had sat in her dark room at night, crouched upon the floor, and clenching her hands, as the mad thoughts went whirling through her brain, she had stared her Fate in the face and known all its awfulness.  Before her lay the rapture of a great, sweet, honourable passion, a high and noble life lived in such bliss as rarely fell to lot of woman—­on this one man she knew that she could lavish all the splendour of her nature, and make his life a heaven, as hers would be.  Behind her lay the mad, uncared-for years, and one black memory blighting all to come, though ’twould have been but a black memory with no power to blight if the heaven of love had not so opened to her and with its light cast all else into shadow.

“If ’twere not love,” she cried—­“if ’twere but ambition, I could defy it to the last; but ’tis love—­love—­love, and it will kill me to forego it.”

Even as she moaned the words she heard hoof beats near her, and a horseman leaped the hedge and was at her side.  She set her teeth, and turning, stared into John Oxon’s face.

“Did you think I would not follow you?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.

“I have followed you at a distance hitherto,” he said; “now I shall follow close.”

She did not speak, but galloped on.

“Think you you can outride me?” he said grimly, quickening his steed’s pace.  “I go with your ladyship to your own house.  For fear of scandal you have not openly rebuffed me previous to this time; for a like reason you will not order your lacqueys to shut your door when I enter it with you.”

My Lady Dunstanwolde turned to gaze at him again.  The sun shone on his bright falling locks and his blue eyes as she had seen it shine in days which seemed so strangely long passed by, though they were not five years agone.

“’Tis strange,” she said, with a measure of wonder, “to live and be so black a devil.”

“Bah! my lady,” he said, “these are fine words—­and fine words do not hold between us.  Let us leave them.  I would escort you home, and speak to you in private.”  There was that in his mocking that was madness to her, and made her sick and dizzy with the boiling of the blood which surged to her brain.  The fury of passion which had been a terror to all about her when she had been a child was upon her once more, and though she had thought herself freed from its dominion, she knew it again and all it meant.  She felt the thundering beat in her side, the hot flood leaping to her cheek, the flame burning her eyes themselves as if fire was within them.  Had he been other than he was, her face itself would have been a warning.  But he pressed her hard.  As he would have slunk away a beaten cur if she had held the victory in her hands, so feeling that the power was his, he exulted over the despairing frenzy which was in her look.