"You must go with me, then, to Mr. Quarrier," she said, firmly. "You have no power to stop me. I shall go home, and you must follow me, if you choose."
"No, you will go with me! Do you hear? I command you to come with me!"
It was his best imitation of resistless authority, and he saw, even in speaking, that he had miscalculated. Lilian drew back a step and looked at him with defiance.
"Command me, you cannot. I am as free from your control as any stranger."
"Try, and see. If you attempt to go back into the town, I shall hold you by force, and the consequences will be worse to you than to me. Do as you please."
Again her eyes turned to the distant roof of Peartree Cottage. She, too, had estimated her strength and his. She knew by instinct what his face meant—the swollen, trembling lips, the hot eyes; and understood that he was capable of any baseness. To attempt to reach her home would be an abandonment of all hope, the ruin of Denzil. A means of escape from worst extremity, undiscoverable by her whirling brain, might suggest itself to such a mind as Mrs. Wade's. If only she could communicate with the cottage!
"Then I shall go to my friend here," she said, pointing.
He hesitated.
"Who is she?"
"A lady who lives quite alone."