“One never knows what he will do next; I will not stir,” she said through her teeth.  “No, I will not stir from here.”

And she did not, but sat still, while the pain came back to her body and the anguish to her heart—­and sometimes such heaviness that her head dropped forward upon her knees again, and she fell into a stupefied half-doze.

From one such doze she awakened with a start, hearing a slight click of the gate.  After it, there were several seconds of dead silence.  It was the slightness of the click which was startling—­if it had not been caused by the wind, it had been caused by someone’s having cautiously moved it—­and this someone wishing to make a soundless approach had immediately stood still and was waiting.  There was only one person who would do that.  By this time, the mist being blown away, the light of the moon began to make a growing clearness.  She lifted her hand and delicately held aside a few twigs that she might look out.

She had been quite right in deciding not to move.  Nigel Anstruthers had come back, and after his pause turned, and avoiding the brick path, stole over the grass to the cottage door.  His going had merely been an inspiration to trap her, and the wood and matches had been intended to make a beacon light for him.  That was like him, as well.  His horse he had left down the road.

But the relief of his absence had been good for her, and she was able to check the shuddering fit which threatened her for a moment.  The next, her ears awoke to a new sound.  Something was stumbling heavily about the patch of garden—­some animal.  A cropping of grass, a snorting breath, and more stumbling hoofs, and she knew that Childe Harold had managed to loosen his bridle and limp out of the shed.  The mere sense of his nearness seemed a sort of protection.

He had limped and stumbled to the front part of the garden before Nigel heard him.  When he did hear, he came out of the house in the humour of a man the inflaming of whose mood has been cumulative; Childe Harold’s temper also was not to be trifled with.  He threw up his head, swinging the bridle out of reach; he snorted, and even reared with an ugly lashing of his forefeet.

“Good boy!” whispered Betty.  “Do not let him take you—­do not!”

If he remained where he was he would attract attention if anyone passed by.  “Fight, Childe Harold, be as vicious as you choose—­do not allow yourself to be dragged back.”

And fight he did, with an ugliness of temper he had never shown before—­with snortings and tossed head and lashed—­out heels, as if he knew he was fighting to gain time and with a purpose.