She paused and waited for an answer. None came, Julian walked faster, dragged her up and down the lawn as she clung to her.
"It was Anthony's doing that Urith came to-night; she was averse to appear, but he insisted on it. She told him she could not dance; he forced her to take her place with him at the head of the room for a measure. Did she ever seek him out? Never. He thrust himself upon her. When her mother died, she had no desire to be hurried into marriage, but he overruled all her objections. He, ever thoughtless, inconsiderate of others, has taken her up out of her old course of life----"
"Enough, enough about her," said Julian, "when you speak of her my anger foams. Speak of him, of his happiness jeopardised, and I cool. What! Has it come to this, that I--I in my gloveless hands hold the fortunes, hold the hearts of these two, to beat and batter them together, and crush and break them both? What if I threaten to do it?"
"You are too good at heart to make the threat, or, if made, to make it good."
Julian was silent again. She took several turns in front of the house. The sounds of revelry streamed out to them. Through the open porch door, along with the light, and occasionally in the porch itself, came a flash of colour as a girl stood there in her bright-tinted dress with the blaze of the candles upon her. Bats were wheeling, and their shrill scream pierced the ear.
"Let me alone, Bess," said Julian. "I cannot breathe, I cannot think when you are by me; my head is like a weir, and all my thoughts tumble, boiling, spattering over, beaten to foam."
Elizabeth withdrew to the porch, where she seated herself, and watched the excited girl on the lawn. She had put her hands to her head and was still pacing up and down, now fast, then slowly, according as her passion or her good nature prevailed.
Then out at the door came Anthony, shouting, "Where is Julian? She promised to dance the Mallard with me! Bessie, have you seen her? I claim her for the Mallard."
Julian heard his voice, and stepped back under the shade of a bank of yews. There was before her gravel, and in that gravel a piece of white spar that shone like a flake of snow in the dark. If she stepped out to that piece of spar he would see her, claim her, and--her evil nature would have got the upper hand. Whither would it lead her? She did not ask that. She saw before her now only the alternative of a half-hour's mad pleasure on the arm of Anthony, of cruel triumph over his already humiliated wife, and abandonment of the contest.