Bittridge, with his overcoat hanging on his arm, advanced towards him with the rest, and continued to advance, in a sort of fascination, after his neighbors, with the instinct that something was about to happen, parted on either side of Richard, and left the two men confronted. Richard did not speak, but deliberately reached out his left hand, which he caught securely into Bittridge’s collar; then he began to beat him with the cowhide wherever he could strike his writhing and twisting shape. Neither uttered a word, and except for the whir of the cowhide in the air, and the rasping sound of its arrest upon the body of Bittridge, the thing was done in perfect silence. The witnesses stood well back in a daze, from which they recovered when Richard released Bittridge with a twist of the hand that tore his collar loose and left his cravat dangling, and tossed the frayed cowhide away, and turned and walked homeward. Then one of them picked up Bittridge’s hat and set it aslant on his head, and others helped pull his collar together and tie his cravat.
For the few moments that Richard Kenton remained in sight they scarcely found words coherent enough for question, and when they did, Bittridge had nothing but confused answers to give to the effect that he did not know what it meant, but he would find out. He got into a hack and had himself driven to his hotel, but he never made the inquiry which he threatened.
In his own house Richard Kenton lay down awhile, deadly sick, and his wife had to bring him brandy before he could control his nerves sufficiently to speak. Then he told her what he had done, and why, and Mary pulled off his shoes and put a hot-water bottle to his cold feet. It was not exactly the treatment for a champion, but Mary Kenton was not thinking of that, and when Richard said he still felt a little sick at the stomach she wanted him to try a drop of camphor in addition to the brandy. She said he must not talk, but she wished him so much to talk that she was glad when he began.
“It seemed to be something I had to do, Mary, but I would give anything if I had not been obliged to do it:
“Yes, I know just how you feel, Dick, and I think it’s pretty hard this has come on you. I do think Ellen might—”
“It wasn’t her fault, Mary. You mustn’t blame her. She’s had more to bear than all the rest of us.” Mary looked stubbornly unconvinced, and she was not moved, apparently, by what he went on to say. “The thing now is to keep what I’ve done from making more mischief for her.”
“What do you mean, Dick? You don’t believe he’ll do anything about it, do you?”
“No, I’m not afraid of that. His mouth is shut. But you can’t tell how Ellen will take it. She may side with him now.”
“Dick! If I thought Ellen Kenton could be such a fool as that!”
“If she’s in love with him she’ll take his part.”