"There's no good gassing about it," he said thickly, "if I let you talk, you'll talk me stupid. I'm going to wring your neck because you dragged my Janey into your own beastly hell, and then when you saw the chance, climbed out over her shoulders, and left her to rot there. She's ill, I tell you—she's half dead—and I'm going to kill you for it."
Quentin flung a last imploring look at the silent fields with their waving, whispering grass. The clouds were scattering now, and the sky blazed with stars. The night was full of the scent of hay.... In a moment they would be lost in a black, choking whirl, that sky, those stars—that sweet smell of hay. He sniffed at it. He thought of the huge mown meadow by Shovelstrode, where only yesterday he and Tony had lounged and played. He heard the voices of the workers, as they turned the great swathes, and shook them on their forks, filling the air with fragrance; he saw Tony in a muslin frock, with the white rose he had given her in her breast. He saw the sun on the coils of her mouse-coloured hair—heard her say some little, trivial, slangy thing that had somehow made him kiss her. He remembered that kiss, so sweet, so cool, so calm—and, as he drew back his head, the look of her innocent eyes....
But once more the thought of Tony put courage into him. If he must die inside the gates of Paradise, he would die worthily of the woman who had opened them to him. For her sake he would die game—it was the only thing he had left to do for her now. He would die with a proud face and a high courage—and his last conscious thought should be of Tony, who, if only for a few short days, had allowed him to see what love can be when it comes in white.
He braced himself up, flung back his shoulders, and waited for the attack.
It came.
Furlonger sprang forward and seized Quentin by the throat. For a moment they swayed together, Lowe snatching at the other's hands and struggling with the frenzy of despair. His eyes bulged, his lips blackened, and still he fought. Then the darkness began to rush over him—first in little clouds, then in long, black sweeps.
"Janey!... Janey!" he cried.
He opened his eyes at last. He was lying under the hedge, his cheek scratched, his hands twisted in the grass. He stirred feebly, then sat up, still crouching back against the hazel. Furlonger lay prone among the buttercups, his chin turned up sharply, the moonlight blazing on his face. Then Lowe remembered how things had happened—how the sickening grip on his throat had suddenly relaxed, and he had gone crashing backwards into the brambles, while something fell with a heavy thud at his feet.
He wondered if Furlonger was dead. He went and looked into his face. The features were strangely drawn, and there was a look of desperate anxiety in their contraction. Then suddenly the eyes opened and looked up into Lowe's, full of terror and fever.
"What's happened? Who's there? Oh, my God!"