Loring crammed the letter into his pocket. The glare of the sunlight on the sheet of white paper had set reddish spots dancing before his eyes. He rode on in a wild flare of outraged protest for half a mile, the horse going as it willed, at a lazy walk. Suddenly it snorted and leaped forward, feeling the jab of spurs in its sides. It ran away indignantly for quite a mile. Then Loring pulled it in, and again they subsided to a dawdling foot pace.
The spurs had been jabbed into Poor Aleck because Loring had suddenly thought of Cuthbridge's too red mouth under its too black moustache.... Of this mouth and of Belinda's....
"Engaged"!... The little devil!... So this was her way of paying him off!... The callous, revengeful little devil!... But then it couldn't be allowed.... He knew too much about Lewis Cuthbridge to think for a moment of allowing him to marry one of the women of his family.... Belinda might not be a blood-relation, but that made no difference. It must be put a stop to—at once—at once! He would write his mother. His head spun. He felt as though some one had his brain in a sling and were whirling it round and round.
When he reached the house, he went up to his own room, locked the door, and, dropping into a chair, pulled out the crushed letter and read it over. Then he jumped up and began striding to and fro in a blind fury. The crash of a chair that he flung out of his way startled him into self-realisation. He recalled Griffeth's warning after that last outbreak in Newport, and sat down again, battling for self-control. And boiling up in him with his wild rage came the old, mad passion for the girl. Those lips—those lips that he had made his own at such cost!—given to that low blackguard!... Pah! The things he knew of the brute!... And now ... now.... Perhaps at this very minute.... Oh, he understood how men could beat women!... He could have dragged Belinda out of that hound's arms by the hair of her head—and beaten her with his fists!... He remembered Griffeth's words again, and again got some sort of hold upon himself....
Morals are more a matter of geography than we like to admit. Loring, an indifferent member of Christianised society, would have made a very respectable Mohammedan.
He withstood for two days the gnawing, racking desire to go and see for himself just "how things were." Then he gave in. He told Sophy that he had decided to go away and think over this crisis between them by himself. Sophy, who had also heard from Mrs. Loring of Belinda's engagement, understood quite well why he was leaving so suddenly. Something in her was glad and sad both at this knowledge. "It is the end," she thought. And endings are always sad. It is said that prisoners of many years leave their cells with a certain regret. Convalescents often have this queer nostalgia on quitting the sick-room. Sophy had known far more sorrow than joy in her marriage with Loring, and yet it was with a mysterious, indescribable, contradictory pain that she held up her cheek for his farewell kiss. He said that he would see her again in two or three weeks. But she felt utterly sure that this was their final parting. Very pale, she held his hand in both hers.
"I wish you all good ... all good, Morris," she whispered. "Whatever comes ... you know that, don't you?"
"I think so ... yes. I know it," he said unsteadily.
The carriage was waiting for him. There was no one else about. She went down the old stone steps of the portico, and stood there while he got in. She was not going to drive to the station with him. Neither of them wanted to say good-by in public. As he took his seat, she put out her hand and tucked in the rug which had slipped. He caught this kind hand and his face broke into a shamed wretchedness. One of the horses plunged impatiently. Their hands were torn apart.