Again that phantom chorus rose up and rang in my ears—­

“A woman, a spaniel, and a walnut tree, The more you beat them, the better they be.”

But the jubilant note was gone, and, though the tune was the same, the voices were harsh, and there was a dreadful mockery of woe in the stave that made me shudder.

My lady heard it too.

“No, no, Ralph.  You do me wrong.  I plucked them myself.  Who is there now to send me posies?  And I am sick—­you know it.  The last time——­” The hurrying voice faltered and stumbled piteously over a sob.  “The last time I was near spent, Ralph.  So near.  And now——­You do not know your strength.  Indeed——­Oh, Ralph, Ralph, what have I done that you should use me so?”

The bitter cry sank into a dull moan, and, setting a frail white arm across her eyes, she bowed her head upon it, as do weeping children, and fell to sobbing with that subdued despair that spells a broken spirit.

My lord’s withers were unwrung.

For a moment he stood still, leering like some foul thing that feasts on Anguish.  Then he let fall the nosegay and took the whip in his right hand....

And I stood there frozen and paralysed and dumb.

Posing his victim with a horrible precision, the monster raised his whip, but it struck a pendant lantern, and with an oath he turned to the gallery, where he should find room and to spare for his brutality.  At this delay my lady fell upon her knees, in a wild hope, I think, to turn her respite into a reprieve, but the beast cried out upon her, struck down her outstretched hands, and, twisting his fingers in her soft dark hair, dragged her incontinently out of the closet.  The little whimper she gave was awful....

And I stood there paralysed.

Five minutes, perhaps, had passed, slow-treading, pregnant minutes, when my lord reappeared.  He stood for a moment listening at the top of the stairs, his chin on his shoulder.  Then he stepped lightly down.  His vile face was pale and his eyes shifted uneasily.  The devil looked out of them yet, but Fright looked with him.  Two paces brought the fellow before the tallboy.  He put up his hands as if to pull open a drawer, when something about the whip he was holding caught his attention.  For a second he stared at it, muttering.  Then, with a glance at the doorway, he thrust the thing beneath the skirt of his coat and wiped it as it had been a rapier....

Again he made to open a drawer, but the spell under which I lay seemed to be lifted, and I shot out a hand and clapped him on the shoulder.

For all the notice he took, I might not have been there.  The more incensed, I shook the man violently....

* * * * *

“Repose,” said Jonah, “is one thing, gluttonish sloth another.  And even if you have once again overestimated the capacity of your stomach, why advertise your intemperance in a public place?” He lifted his hand from my shoulder to look at his watch.  “It’s now ten minutes to three.  Do you think you can stagger, or must you be carried, to the car?”