And like the young lion, drawing long breaths through dilated-nostrils, Augustine growled back:--"I will not--I will not.--You shall not go to her. I would rather kill you."
"Kill me?" Sir Hugh smiled. "It would be a fight first, you know."
"Then let it be a fight. You shall not go to her."
"And what if she wants me to go to her.--Will you kill her first, too--"--The words broke. Augustine's hand was on his throat. Sir Hugh seized him. They writhed together against the door. "You mad-man!--You damned mad-man!--Your mother is in love with me.--I'll put you out of her life--"--Sir Hugh grated forth from the strangling clutch.
Suddenly, as they writhed, panting, glaring their hatred at each other, the door they leaned on pushed against them. Someone outside was turning the handle, was forcing it open. And, as if through the shocks and flashes of a blinding, deafening tempest, Augustine heard his mother's voice, very still, saying: "Let me come in."
They fell apart and moved back into the room. Amabel entered. She wore a long white dressing-gown that, to her son's eyes, made her more than ever look her sainted self; she had dressed hastily, and, on hearing the crash below, she had wrapped a white scarf about her head and shoulders, covering her unbound hair. So framed and narrowed her face was that of a shrouded corpse: the same strange patience stamped it; her eyes, only, seemed to live, and they, too, were patient and ready for any doom.
Quietly she had closed the door, and standing near it now she looked at them; her eyes fell for a moment upon Sir Hugh; then they rested on Augustine and did not leave him.
Sir Hugh spoke first. He laughed a little, adjusting his collar and tie.
"My dear,--you've saved my life. Augustine was going to batter my brains out on the door, I fancy."
She did not look at him, but at Augustine.
"He's really dangerous, your son, you know. Please don't leave me alone with him again," Sir Hugh smiled and pleaded; it was with almost his own lightness, but his face still twitched with anger.
"What have you said to him?" Amabel asked.
Augustine's eyes were drawing her down into their torment.--Unfortunate one.--That presage of her maternity echoed in her now. His stern young face seemed to have been framed, destined from the first for this foreseen misery.