Arthur took the same path by which he had come—all paths were alike to
him now—but before he had gone ten yards he saw the figure of George
Caresfoot, who appeared to have been watching him. In George’s hand was
a riding-whip, for he had ridden from the scene of the fire, and was
all begrimed with smoke and dirt. But this Arthur did not notice.
“Hullo,” he began; “what——” and then he hesitated; there was a look in
Arthur’s eyes which he did not like.
But, if George hesitated, Arthur did not. He sprang at him like a wild
cat, and in a second had him by the throat and shoulder. For a moment
he held him there, for in his state of compressed fury George was like
a child in his hands. And as he held him a fierce and almost
uncontrollable desire took possession of him to kill this man, to throw
him down and stamp the life out of him. He conquered it, however, and
loosed the grip on his throat.
“Let me go,” shrieked George, as soon as he could get breath.
Arthur cut short his clamours by again compressing his wind-pipe.
“Listen,” he said; “a second ago I was very near killing you, but I
remember now that, after all, it is she, not you, who are chiefly to
blame. You only followed your brutal nature, and nothing else can be
expected of a brute. Very likely you put pressure on her, like the cad
that you are, but that does not excuse her, for, if she could not
resist pressure, she is a fool in addition to being what she is. I look
at you and think that soon _she_ will come down to _your_ level, the
level of my successful rival. To be mated to a man like you would drag
an angel down. That will be punishment enough. Now go, you cur!”
He swung him violently from him. His fall was broken by a bramble-
bush. It was not exactly a bed of roses, but George thought it safer to
lie there till his assailant’s footsteps had grown faint—he did not
wish to bring him back again. Then he crept out of the bush smarting
all over. Indeed, his frame of mind was altogether not of the most
amiable. To begin with, he had just seen his house—which, as luck would
have it, was the only thing he had not sold to Philip, and which was
also at the moment uninsured, owing to the confusion arising from the
transfer of the property—entirely burnt down. All its valuable contents
too, including a fine collection of pictures and private papers he by
no means wished to lose, were irretrievably destroyed.
Nor was his mood improved by the recollection of the events of the
previous night, or by the episode of the bramble-bush, illuminated as
it was by Arthur’s vigorous language; or by what he had just witnessed,
for he had arrived in time to see, though from a distance, the last act
of the interview between Arthur and Angela.
He had seen him lift her in his arms, kiss her, and place her on the
stone seat, but he did not know that she had fainted. The sight had
roused his evil passions until they raged like the fire he had left.
Then Arthur came out upon him and he made acquaintance with the
bramble-bush as already described. But he was not going to be cheated
out of his revenge; the woman was still left for him to wreak it on.
By the time he reached Angela, her faculties were reawakening; but,
though insensibility had yielded, sense had not returned. She sat upon
the stone seat, upright indeed, but rigid and grasping its angles with
her hands. The dog had gone. In the undecided way common to dogs, when
two people to whom they are equally attached separate, it had at that
moment taken it into its head to run a little way after Arthur.
George marched straight up to her, livid with fury.
“So this is how you go on when your husband is away, is it? I saw you
kissing that young blackguard, though I am not good enough for you.
What, won’t you answer? Then it is time that I taught you obedience.”
“Swish!” went the heavy whip through the air, and fell across her fair
cheek.
“Will that wake you, eh, or must I repeat the dose?”
The pain of the blow seemed to rouse her. She rose, her loosed hair
falling round her like a golden fleece, and a broad blue stripe across
her ghastly face. She stretched out her hands; she opened her great
eyes, and in them blazed the awful light of madness.
He was standing, whip in hand, with his back to the lake; she faced
him, a breathing, beautiful vengeance, and in a whisper so intense that
the air was full of it, commenced a rambling prayer.
“Oh, God,” she said, “bless my dear Arthur! Oh, Almighty Father, avenge
our wrongs!”
She paused and fixed her eyes upon him, and they held him so that he
could not stir. Then, in strange contrast to the hissing whisper, there
broke from her lips a ringing and unearthly laugh that chilled him to
the marrow. So they stood for some seconds.
The sound of angry voices had brought the bulldog back at full speed,
and, at the sight of George’s threatening attitude, it halted. It had
always hated him, and now it straightway grew more like a devil than a
dog. The innate fierceness of the great brute awoke; it bristled with
fury till each separate hair stood out in knots against the skin, and
saliva ran from its twitching jaws.
George did not know that it was near him, but Angela’s wild eye fell
upon it. Slowly raising her hand, she pointed at it.
“Look behind you,” she cried.
The sound of her voice broke the spell that was upon him.
“Come, give me no more of your nonsense,” he said, and then, as much
from vague fear and rampant brutality as from any other reason, again
struck her with the whip.
Next second he was aware of a tremendous shock. The dog had seen the
blow, and had instantly launched itself, with all the blind courage of
its race, straight at the striker’s throat. It missed its aim, however,
only carrying away a portion of George’s under-lip. He yelled with
pain, and struck at it with the whip, and then began a scene which, in
its grotesque horror, beggars all description. Again and again the dog
flew at him, its perfect silence contrasting strangely with George’s
shrieks of terror, and the shrill peals of horrible laughter that came
hurrying from Angela’s lips as she watched the struggle.
At last the dog gripped the man by the forearm, and, sinking its great
teeth into the flesh, hung its weight upon it. In vain did George,
maddened by the exquisite pain, dash himself and the dog against the
ground: in vain did he stagger round and round the glen, tearing at its
throat with his uninjured hand. The brute hung grimly on. Presently
there came an end. As he reeled along, howling for help and dragging
his fierce burden with him, George stumbled over a dead bough which lay
upon the bank of the lake, and fell backwards into the water, exactly
at the spot where the foundations of the old boat-house wall rose to
within a few inches of the surface. His head struck heavily against the
stonework, and he and the dog, who would not loose his grip, lay on it
for a moment, then they rolled off together into the deep pool, the man
dragging the dog with him. There were a few ripples, stained with
little red filaments, a few air-bubbles that marked the exhalation of
his last breath, and George’s spirit had left its enclosing body, and
gone—whither? Ay, reader, whither had it gone?
The outcry brought Philip and old Jakes running down to the lake. They
found Angela standing alone on the brink and laughing her wildest.
“See,” she cried, as they came panting up, “the bridegroom cometh from
his chamber,” and at that moment some unreleased air within the body
brought it up for an instant to the surface, so that the torn and
ghastly face and head emerged for a second as though to look at them.
Then it sank again.
“The brave dog holds him well—ha, ha, ha! He cannot catch me now—ha,
ha, ha! Nor you, Judas, who sold me. Judas! Judas! Judas!” and,
turning, she fled with the speed of the wind.
Mr. Fraser had but just come down, and was walking in his garden, when
he saw this dreadful figure come flying towards him with streaming
hair.
“_Betrayed_,” she cried, in a voice which rang like the wail of a lost
soul, and fell on her face at his feet.
When she came back to life they found that she was mad.