He turned on me with a sneer. His eyes had receded in his head, and in his rage he grinned. The old ape-face, which had lurked in my memory ever since the time I first saw him, came out so plainly that I started: the child had read his face aright! the following judgment of the man had been wrong! the child’s fear had not imprinted a false eidolon upon the growing brain.
‘What right had, you,’ he said, ‘to bring me all this way for such tomfoolery?’
‘I told you it would not further your wishes.—But who brought me here for nothing first?’ I added, most foolishly.
‘I was myself deceived. I did not intend to deceive you.’
‘I know that. God forbid I should be unjust to you! But you have proved to me that your friendship was all a pretence; that your private ends were all your object. When you discovered that I could not serve those, you dropped me like a bit of glass you had taken for a diamond. Have you any right to grumble if I give you the discipline of a passing shame?’
‘Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, through his teeth, ‘you will repent this.’
I gave him no answer, and he left the church in haste. Having replaced the register, I was following at my leisure, when I heard sounds that made me hurry to the door. Lilith was plunging and rearing and pulling at the bridle which I had thrown over one of the spiked bars of the gate. Another moment and she must have broken loose, or dragged the gate upon her—more likely the latter, for the bridle was a new one with broad reins—when some frightful injury would in all probability have been the consequence to herself. But a word from me quieted her, and she stood till I came up. Every inch of her was trembling. I suspected at once, and in a moment discovered plainly that Mr Coningham had struck her with his whip: there was a big weal on the fine skin of her hip and across, her croup. She shrunk like a hurt child when my hand approached the injured part, but moved neither hoof nor head.
Having patted and petted and consoled her a little, I mounted and rode after Mr Coningham. Nor was it difficult to overtake him, for he was going a foot-pace. He was stooping in his saddle, and when I drew near, I saw that he was looking very pale. I did not, however, suspect that he was in pain.
‘It was a cowardly thing to strike the poor dumb animal,’ I cried.
‘You would have struck her yourself,’ he answered with a curse,’ if she had broken your leg.’