"Oh!" she gasped, closing her eyes as she shrank away from him. The word he had used stood for the foulest thing on earth to her. It had never passed her clean, pure lips. For the moment she was petrified, speechless.
"It's about time you learned the truth about that damned old hypocrite,—if you don't know it already," he continued, raising his voice at the urge of the now reckless fury that consumed him. He stood over her shrinking figure, glaring mercilessly down into her horror-struck eyes. "You don't need to take my word for it. Ask Gwynne. He knows. He knows what happened back there in Kentucky. He knows she ran off with his father twenty years ago, taking him away from the woman he was married to. That's why he hates her. That's why he never had anything to do with his dog of a father. And, by God, he probably knows you were born out of wedlock,—that you're a love-child, a bas—"
CHAPTER XX — THE BLOW
He never finished the word. A whirlwind was upon him. Before he could raise a hand to defend himself, Kenneth Gwynne's brawny fist smote him squarely between the eyes. He went down as though struck by a sledge-hammer, crashing to the ground full six feet from where he stood. Behind that clumsy blow was the weight of a thirteen stone body, hurled as from a mighty catapult.
He never knew how long afterward it was that he heard a voice speaking to him. The words, jumbled and unintelligible, seemed to come from a great distance. He attempted to rise, gave it up, and fell back dizzily. His vision was slow in clearing. What he finally saw, through blurred, uncertain eyes, was the face of Kenneth Gwynne, far above him,—and it was a long time before it stopped whirling and became fixed in one place. Then he realized that it was the voice of Gwynne that was speaking to him, and he made out the words. Something warm and wet crept along the sides of his mouth, over his chin, down his neck. His throat was full of a hot nauseous fluid. He raised himself on one elbow and spat.
"Get up! Get up, you filthy whelp! I'm not going to hit you again. Get up, I say!"
He struggled to his knees and then to his feet, sagging limply against the fence, to which he clung for support. He felt for his nose, filled with a horrid, sickening dread that it was no longer on his face.
"I ought to kill you," he heard Gwynne saying. "You black-hearted, lying scoundrel. Get out of my sight!"