“You—you're talking like a madwoman! My father would have cut me off, his father would have cut him off! By God! do you think I'll stand quietly by and see it all played ducks and drakes with, and see that woman here, and see her son, a—a bastard, or as bad as a bastard, in my place? You don't know me!”
The last words came through his teeth like the growl of a dog. Mrs. Pendyce made the crouching movement of one who gathers herself to spring.
“If you give him up, I shall go to him; I will never come back!”
The Squire's grip on the rail relaxed; in the light of the candle, still and steady and bright—his jaw could be seen to fall. He snapped his teeth together, and turning abruptly, said:
“Don't talk such rubbish!”
Then, taking the candle, he went into his dressing-room.
And at first his feelings were simple enough; he had merely that sore sensation, that sense of raw offence, as at some gross and violent breach of taste.
'What madness,' he thought, 'gets into women! It would serve her right if I slept here!'
He looked around him. There was no place where he could sleep, not even a sofa, and taking up the candle, he moved towards the door. But a feeling of hesitation and forlornness rising, he knew not whence, made him pause irresolute before the window.
The young moon, riding low, shot her light upon his still, lean figure, and in that light it was strange to see how grey he looked—grey from head to foot, grey, and sad, and old, as though in summary of all the squires who in turn had looked upon that prospect frosted with young moonlight to the boundary of their lands. Out in the paddock he saw his old hunter Bob, with his head turned towards the house; and from the very bottom of his heart he sighed.