"Will you remove your hand?"
"When it suits me," returns he; "not before."
Passionate indignation conquers her self-control. Raising her arm, she brings down her riding-whip, with swift and unexpected violence, upon his cheek. The blow is so severe that, for the moment, he loses his presence of mind, and, swaying backward, lets the bridle go. Clarissa, finding herself free, in another moment is out of his reach and on her way to Sartoris.
As she reaches the gate, she meets James Scrope coming out, and, drawing rein, looks at him strangely.
"Have you seen a ghost?" asks he, slipping from his saddle, and coming up to her. "Your face is like death."
"I have, the ghost of an old love, but, oh, how disfigured! Jim, I have seen Horace."
She hides her face with her hands. She remembers the late scene with painful distinctness, and wonders if she has been unwomanly, coarse, undeserving of pity. She will tell him,—that is, Scrope,—and, if he condemns her, her cup will be indeed full.
Sir James—who, as a rule, is the most amiable of men—is now dark with anger.
"Branscombe—here?" he says, indignantly.
"Yes. He had evidently heard nothing. But I told him; and—and then he said things he should not have said; and he held my reins; and I forgot myself," says poor Clarissa, with anguish in her eyes; "and I raised my whip, and struck him across the face. Jim, if you say I was wrong in doing this thing, you will kill me."