“I want you. I reckon you don’t know what that means when I say I want you, or you wouldn’t be so damn cruel. Ivy, I can’t leave you like this. I can’t go back to camp knowing I’m just nothing to you. You must give me some sort of hope. It’s not fair to have led me on——” “I never led you on——” Her limbs were shaking. An unaccountable terror had seized her—a terror of him, with his hot, gripping hand and blazing eyes, of the field so dim and sour, its grass scummy with the spilth of trampled toadstools, of the wood close by with its spindled ashes and clumping oaks.... “Let me go!” she cried suddenly, in a weak frightened voice. For answer he pulled her into his arms, and held her with her breast bruised against his. “I shan’t let you go—I’ll never let you go. Come into the wood, Ivy. Don’t be afraid ... I love you.... Come into the wood—there’s nothing to be afraid of. I wouldn’t hurt you for worlds.” He tried to pick her up and carry her, but she struggled desperately and broke free. “This has justabout finished it all, Jerry Sumption. You’re a beast—I’ll never let you come nigh me agaun. You’ve a-done for yourself. I’ve bin good to you and straight wud you, and I’d have gone on being friends; but now I’ve a-done wud you for good.” Her voice broke with rage, and she turned to run home. But he grabbed her again, and this time she could not escape. He was a small man, and she was a big whacking girl; but madness was in him, and his arms were like iron clamps. “You shan’t get shut of me like that. I tell you I mean to have you ... and wot’s more I’ll make you have me. I’ll break your pride—I’ll make you want to have me, ask me to take you.” Ivy screamed. “Scream away. No one ull hear. I’ve got you, and I’m damned if I let you go till I please.... To-morrow you’ll be on your knees, begging me to take you and save you.” He clapped his hand over her mouth, and forced back her head, kissing her strained and aching neck till she screamed with pain as well as with fright. Her cries were stilled under his palm, her head swam, her strength was leaving her ... she was down on one knee ... then suddenly, she could never remember how, she was free, and running, running as she had never run before, her breath sobbing in her throat—across the field of the toadstools and sour grass, away from the shadow of Forges Wood, in the orchard, to see the gable of Worge rising against the pewter—grey of the clouds that hid the moon. At the orchard edge she had the sense to stop and tidy herself. There was no longer any fear of pursuit—if indeed she had ever been pursued. She had dropped her shawl in the field, her blouse was torn open at the neck, her hair was down on her shoulders, and her face all blotched with excitement and tears. Also, a new experience, she was trembling from head to foot, and her shaking hands could scarcely fasten her blouse and twist up her hair. “You beast!” she sobbed, as she fumbled; “you beast! You dirty gipsy!”