"Bah!" sneered he, "I shall not kill you. But I shall make you understand to fear me, if you cannot love me." He gripped her wrist. "Whether alive or dead, there will be no escape from me. I will follow you, track you in all you do, and if I go underground shall fasten on you, in spirit, and drag you underground as well. When you married me you became mine forever."
A little noise made both turn.
At the door was Sally Rocliffe, her malevolent face on the watch, observing all that passed.
"What do you want here?" asked the Broom-Squire.
"Nuthin', Jonas, but to know what time it is. Our clock is all wrong when it does go, and now, with the cold and snow, I suppose, it has stopped altogether."
Sally looked at the clock that stood in the comer, Jonas turned sharply on his heel, took his hat, and went forth into the backyard of his farm.
"So," said Mrs. Rocliffe, "my brother is in fear of his life of you. I know very well how he got the shot in his elbow. It was not your fault that it did not lodge in his head. And now he dare not take his medicine from your hands lest you should put poison into it. That comes of marrying into a gallows family."
Then slowly she walked away.
Mehetabel sank into the window seat.
However glorious the snow-clad, sunlit world might be without it was nothing to her. Within her was darkness and despair.