"Good evening," he said. "These are my grounds and you will be ready to admit that even my humble home is my castle?"
For answer, the intruder stepped forward and slashed him across the face with the riding-crop.
The insolently poised figure reeled backwards as Cyprian spoke to Ferlie.
"The horse is here. I am going to put you up on it and lead it home. You don't look fit to walk."
Without a word she went with him down the slope. She would have refused his help in mounting only that he lifted her bodily and set her sideways on the saddle, putting the reins between her nerveless fingers.
The dull thudding progress of the horse was out of time with her quickening pulses.... Something in the life of Cyprian and herself was over, and of the new phase which loomed ahead she was afraid.
Arrived at the house she motioned him away and slipped unaided to the ground. He tossed the reins to a servant and followed her up the path to his office. She sank into a chair and sat motionless resting her chin in her palms, dimly aware that he had passed into his dressing-room. She heard the splutter of a syphon, and immediately he returned to push a weak mixture towards her. "Drink it up," he ordered in matter-of-fact tones. "And then, just when you're ready, Ferlie, you can begin."
So he had not forgotten his promise. Cyprian never made the same mistake twice. It took a long while for her to tell him, and during the whole recital he refrained from interruption. When she ended he drew a deep breath and stretched out a hand through the gathering dusk to lay it over hers in the old protective way.
"I have this to say," he told her. "We are through with any childish arguments concerning one another's rights. You have taken no irrevocable vows to obey me—in fact, I believe the word has lately been deleted from the orthodox marriage service, has it not?—but our united brains must be clear upon the point that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, and, as it is impossible for two human souls of widely different impulses to agree identically upon the treatment of every problem they may be called upon to solve, it is necessary that in final decisions one should yield precedence to the other. In visionary matters beyond my ken I am willing to sit at your feet. Over practical matters and the verdicts that affect our material welfare, I claim precedence, Ferlie. You gave it to me when you gave yourself into my keeping at Black Towers. I am responsible for you; not you for me. Are you satisfied for this to be so?"
It was not in her power to speak, but she bowed her weary puzzled head over his hand and rested it there. He laid his free one upon her hair and continued speaking, while he absently smoothed the ruffled "bob."