“Those are lies,” Mount Dunstan answered—­“every damned one of them!”

He wheeled around to look about him, attracted by a sound, and in the clearing moonlight saw a figure approaching which might have risen from the earth, so far as he could guess where it had come from.  He strode over to it, and it was Betty Vanderpoel, holding her whip in a clenched hand and showing to his eagerness such hunted face and eyes as were barely human.  He caught her unsteadiness to support it, and felt her fingers clutch at the tweed of his coatsleeve and move there as if the mere feeling of its rough texture brought heavenly comfort to her and gave her strength.

“Yes, they are lies, Lord Mount Dunstan,” she panted.  “He said that he meant to get what he called ‘even’ with me.  He told me I could not get away from him and that no one would hear me if I cried out for help.  I have hidden like some hunted animal.”  Her shaking voice broke, and she held the cloth of his sleeve tightly.  “You are alive—­alive!” with a sudden sweet wildness.  “But it is true the bell tolled!  While I was crouching in the dark I called to you—­who died to-day—­to stand between us!”

The man absolutely shuddered from head to foot.

“I was alive, and you see I heard you and came,” he answered hoarsely.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the cottage.  Her cheek felt the enrapturing roughness of his tweed shoulder as he did it.  He laid her down on the couch of hay and turned away.

“Don’t move,” he said.  “I will come back.  You are safe.”

If there had been more light she would have seen that his jaw was set like a bulldog’s, and there was a red spark in his eyes—­a fearsome one.  But though she did not clearly see, she knew, and the nearness of the last hours swept away all relenting.

Nigel Anstruthers having discreetly waited until the two had passed into the house, and feeling that a man would be an idiot who did not remove himself from an atmosphere so highly charged, was making his way toward the lane and was, indeed, halfway through the gate when heavy feet were behind him and a grip of ugly strength wrenched him backward.

“Your horse is cropping the grass where you left him, but you are not going to him,” said a singularly meaning voice.  “You are coming with me.”

Anstruthers endeavoured to convince himself that he did not at that moment turn deadly sick and that the brute would not make an ass of himself.

“Don’t be a bally fool!” he cried out, trying to tear himself free.

The muscular hand on his shoulder being reinforced by another, which clutched his collar, dragged him back, stumbling ignominiously through the gooseberry bushes towards the cart-shed.  Betty lying upon her bed of hay heard the scuffling, mingled with raging and gasping curses.  Childe Harold, lifting his head from his cropping of the grass, looked after the violently jerking figures and snorted slightly, snuffing with dilated red nostrils.  As a war horse scenting blood and battle, he was excited.