There was a step behind them. In their anxiety they had not noticed it until it was close at their heels. They turned, and were face to face with Mr. Bonnithorne. The lawyer bowed, but before they had exchanged the courtesies of welcome, a horse's tramp came from the road, and in a moment Drayton rode up the lonnin. His face was flushed, and his manner noisy as he leaped from the saddle into their midst. Greta lifted one hand to her breast, and with the other hand she clasped that of the parson. The old man's face grew rigid in an instant, and all the mellowness natural to it died away. Drayton made up to Greta and the parson with an air of braggadocio. "I've come to tell you once for all that my wife must live under my roof." No one answered. Drayton took a step near, and slapped his boot with his riding-whip. "The law backs me up in it, and I mean to have it out." Still there was no answer, and Drayton's braggadocio gathered assurance from the silence. "Not as I want her. None of your shrinking away, madame." A hoarse laugh. "Burn my body! if I wouldn't as soon have my mother for a wife." "What then?" said the parson in a low tone. "Appearances. I ain't to be a laughing-stock of the neighborhood any longer. My wife's my wife. A husband's a husband, and wants obedience." "And what if you do not get it?" asked the parson, his old face whitening. "What? Imprisonment--that's what." Drayton twisted about and touched the lawyer with the handle of his whip. "Here, you, tell 'em what's what." Thus appealed to, Mr. Bonnithorne explained that a husband was entitled to the restitution of connubial rights, and, in default, to the "attachment" of his spouse. "The law," said Mr. Bonnithorne, "can compel a wife to live with her husband, or punish her with imprisonment for not doing so." "D'ye hear?" said Drayton, slapping furiously at the sole of his boot. "Punish her with imprisonment." There was a pause, and then the parson said, quietly but firmly: "I gather that it means that you want to share this lady's property." "Well, what of it? Hain't I a right to share it, eh?" "You have thus far enjoyed the benefit of her mortgages, on the pretense that you are her husband; but now you are going too far." "We'll see. Here, you," prodding the lawyer, "take proceedings at once. If she won't come, imprison her. D'ye hear--imprison her!" He swung about and caught the reins from the horse's mane, laughing a hollow laugh. Greta disengaged her hand from the hand of the parson, and stepped up to Drayton until she stood before him face to face, her eyes flashing, her lips quivering, her cheeks pale, her whole figure erect and firm. "And what of that?" she said. "Do you think to frighten me with the cruelties of the law?--me?--me?" she echoed, with scorn in every syllable. "Have I suffered so little from it already that you dare to say, 'Imprison her,' as if that would drive me to your house?"