Major Rockley had better have restrained his rage, for in an instant that blow transformed Richard Linnell, the calm and quiet, into a savage.
He turned round with a roar more than a cry, and sprang upon Rockley; there was a fierce struggle, ending in the riding-whip being torn from its owner’s grasp, and for the space of a couple of minutes there was the sound of the lash cutting through the air, and the blows that fell upon the tight undress uniform.
No words were uttered, but there was the scuffling of feet, the hoarse panting of excited men, and the corn was trampled down.
“There,” cried Linnell at last, flinging Rockley from him, and throwing the whip in his face, “dog and coward! You have had the thrashing you deserved. Strike me again if you dare.”
Major Rockley picked up the whip, and brushed the dust from his uniform. He strove hard to make his convulsed face smooth and to force a smile, while he mastered the desire to writhe and utter impatient cries, so keen was the agony he felt.
“No,” he said, in a low hissing whisper, “you are a stronger man than I, and when we meet again it shall be on equal terms.”
He accompanied his words with a vindictive look that told Richard Linnell plainly enough how they would encounter next.
He repressed a shudder, and then a pang that seemed to pierce his heart shot through him, for with a malicious smile Rockley said:
“I did not know the lady had made an appointment with you. Of course, she had to keep up appearances. But there: I’ll say no more.”
He raised his cap mockingly, and went off across the cornfield, leaving Richard Linnell stung to the heart, his brow knit, and his eyes fixed upon Claire, who, white as ashes, and her face convulsed by the agony within her breast, crouched where she had sunk upon the lower steps of the stile.