He gripped hold of her wrist. “Do you want me to have to lock you up?” he asked; and she quailed before the authority of his voice.
He went across to the door and opened it. Outside, upon the floor, a hurricane lamp was burning; and this he picked up.
“Here’s a lamp,” he said, “and here are matches. Now go to bed.”
She took them from him in silence, and slowly walked out of the room.
He watched her as she passed across the refectory, the light from her lantern casting her swaying shadow in huge size upon the ruinous walls. Then he shut the door, and sitting down at the table, buried his face in his hands.
[CHAPTER XXVII—THE FLIGHT]
For a long time Daniel lay awake upon his bed at the top of the tower, while his thoughts passed through a number of recurrent phases. More than once he felt that he had made a mountain out of a molehill; but this attitude of mind was dismissed by the recollection that, whether Muriel truly loved him or not, she had come to him “on the sly,” and, by planning this surreptitious interlude (for she had meant it to be no more than that) she had invested their relationship with that very atmosphere of intrigue which he so strongly resented.
He saw in her action the influence of that small section of London society which he abhorred, wherein the women appeared to him to be secret courtesans who would neither abide by the traditional law nor openly flout it; and he was determined either to eradicate that influence or to lose Muriel. He was not entirely clear in his mind as to what he was going to do with her in the Oasis for this fortnight; but of this he was sure, that she needed a lesson, and that he was going to take her in hand, remorselessly, whatever might be the consequences.
The moon, in the last quarter, rose above the far-off hills while yet he was wearily thinking, and realizing thus that daybreak was not more than two hours distant, he obliged himself by force of will, to compose his mind for sleep. In this he was successful and presently he fell into a deep slumber from which it would have been difficult to wake him.
Meanwhile, Muriel had also watched the dim light of the rising moon as it slowly spread over the desert. She had slept for two or three hours—a miserable sleep of exhaustion; but when she was awakened by the hooting of an owl outside the window, she lit her lamp and made no further attempt at repose.