"Oh, dear God!" moaned Mysie, kneeling down, her legs unable to support her longer, "Oh, dear God, my heart'll break!" and a wild burst of sobbing shook her frame, and her grief overpowering flowed through the tears—a picture of utter despair and terrible hopelessness.
Robert tore away from the dell, his whole calculation of things upset. To think that Mysie could not love him had never entered his head. What was wrong with her? What was the nature of her terrible grief?
He kicked savagely at a thistle which grew upon the edge of the pathway, his pride wounded, but now in possession of the citadel of his heart; and on he strode, still driven by the terrible passion raging within him; resolving already, as many have done under like circumstances, that his life was finished. Hope had gone, dreams were unreal and vanishing as the mist that crawled along the bog-pools at night.
At the crest of the little hill, just where it sloped down to the village, he stood and looked back.
Good God! Was he seeing aright! The figure of a man, who in the gray gloaming looked well-dressed, was approaching Mysie, and she was slowly moving to meet him. A few steps more, and the man had the girl, he thought, in his arms, and was kissing her where they stood.
Was he dreaming? What was the meaning of all this? "Oh, Christ!" he groaned. "What does it all mean?" and he rubbed his eyes and looked again, then sat down, all his pride and anger raging within him as he watched, kindling the jungle instinct within him into a raging fire, to fight for his mate—his by right of class and association. He doubled back, as the two figures turned in the direction of the copse—the resolve in his mind to go back and forcibly tear Mysie from this unknown stranger. He would fight for her. She was his, and he was prepared to assert his right of possession before all the world.
In a mad fury he started forward, a raging anger in his heart, striding along in quick, determined, relentless steps, his blood jumping and his energy roused, and all the madness of a strong nature coursing through him; but after a few yards he hesitated, stopped, and then turned back.
After all, Mysie must have made an appointment with this man. She evidently wanted him, and that was her reason for asking to be left alone.
"Oh, God!" he groaned again, sitting down. "This is hellish!" and he began to turn over the whole business in his mind once more.
Long he sat, and the darkness fell over the moor, matching the darkness that brooded over his heart and mind. He heard the moor-birds crying in restlessness, and saw the clouds piling themselves up, and come creeping darkly over the higher ground, bringing a threat of rain in their wake. The moan in the wind became louder, presaging a storm; but still he sat or lay upon the rough, withered grass, fighting out his battle, meeting the demons of despair and gloom, and the legions of pain and misery, in greater armies than ever he had met them before.