“Ha, Dan, I have led you a dance, hey!”
Dan stopped dead with a great oath, then came close to her, panting, and glaring in her face.
“What be you doing in the forest, you she-dog?”
“I may follow my husband when he goes hunting.”
Dan, with a curse, lifted up his great fist, struck her in the face, and bent over her as she lay half-stunned by the blow.
XXXV
Dan dragged Bess up by the wrist, and, seeing that she was dazed and faint, let her lean for a moment against a tree. The girl had been half stunned by the blow he had given her; blood was trickling from her mouth, her head drooping upon her bosom.
Dan, who was biting his nails and looking the creature of fury and indecision, turned on her at last, and, taking her by the cloak, dragged her back along the path. Bess had no spirit left in her for the moment. Faint, dizzy, and unable to think, she was yet conscious of the fact that she was utterly at her husband’s mercy. Dan dragged her along roughly, cursing her when she stumbled, and shifting his grip from her cloak to her arm. She felt his fingers bruising the flesh as he gripped the muscles, grinding his teeth and shaking her now and again as though she were a child.
Dan brought his wife to the Monk’s Grave again. From afar they saw the light of the lantern blinking through the forest, for Isaac had relit it and was standing on guard with his gun at full-cock. Dan gave a shout as he dragged Bess through the undergrowth, careless of how the boughs and briers smote and scratched her face. Isaac came limping up the glade towards them, the lantern in one hand, the gun in the other.
“Who be it, Dan?” he asked.