It seems impossible for her to remove her eyes from those above her—to move in any way. Her brain grows at last confused, and only three words seem to be clear—to din themselves with a cruel persistency in her ears: ‘All is over! All is over!’
They have neither sense nor meaning to her in her present state, but still they go on repeating themselves: ‘All is over! All, all, all is over!’
The man has caught a branch of the tree now, and with a certain activity, considering the squareness and the bulk of his body, has swung himself into it, and so on to the ground.
He is coming towards her. The girl still stands immovable, as if rooted to the gravel walk; but her mind has returned to her. Alas! it brings no hope with it. This man, who has been a terror to her from her childhood, has now again come into the circle of her daily life. She draws back as he approaches her—her first movement since her frightened eyes met his—and holds up her hands, as a child might, to ward off mischief. This coming face to face with him is a horrible shock as well as an awakening. She had believed herself mistress of her fears of him, though her horror might still obtain, and now, now she knows that both her horror and her fear are still rampant.
‘Well, I’ve found you at last,’ says the man, advancing across the grass. ‘And here!’ There is something terrible in his tone and in the look of scorn he casts at the pretty surroundings, beautiful always, though now wrapped in their snowy shrouds. ‘Four months ago I was here,’ says he, after a lengthened pause. ‘I was on your track then, but a mere chance put me off it. Four months ago I might have dragged you out of this sink of iniquity—had I but known!’
Ella is silent. That day when she had run back from the Rectory and fancied she saw him turn the corner of the road. That fancy had been no delusion, then! Ah! why had she played with it?
‘Have you nothing to say?’ asks he slowly, sullenly, gazing at her with hard, compelling eyes. ‘No excuse to make, or are you trying to get up a story? I tell you, girl, it will be useless. This speaks for itself.’ Again he looks round him, at the charming cottage, the tall trees, the dainty garden and winding walks.
‘There is no story,’ says Ella at last. Her voice is dry and husky; she can hardly force the words between her lips.
‘You lie!’ says the man fiercely. ‘There is a story, and a most —— one for you.’ His eyes light with a sudden fury, and he looks for a moment as though he would willingly fall upon her and choke the life out of her slender body. His manner is distinctly brutal, but yet there is something about it that speaks of honesty. It is rough, cruel, hateful, but honest for all that. A certain belief in himself is uppermost.
He is a tall man, very strong in build, and with strong features too. His dress is that of the comfortable, half-educated artisan; but he shows some neatness in his attire. His shirt is immaculate, his hair well cut, and altogether he might suggest to the unimpassioned observer that he was a man who had dreamt many dreams of rising above the life to which he had been born. He is, at all events, not an ordinary man of any type, and distinctly one to be feared, if only for the enormous strength he had put forth to fight with his daily surroundings, and with his past (a more difficult enemy still), so as to gain a footing on the ladder that will raise him above his fellows.