They skirted the meadow known as Watch Oak, then followed the grass lane to Golden Pot and the outhouses of Anstiel. Quentin was trying to work his way back towards Kent and the valley of the hammer ponds, but Leonard drove him obstinately southwards. He was beginning to gain on him a little. Quentin could hear his footsteps, and he knew why he was following him. A sick dread was creeping up Lowe's back--he looked round at the shuddering woods and that strange sky of storm and stars, and he trembled with the presentiment that he saw them all for the last time. Furlonger was a great, big, burly brute--and Furlonger would kill him. Perhaps, after all, he deserved to die--the country through which he plunged in this horrible death-chase had a reproach in each spinney, a regret in each field. And yet his heart was stiff with defiance--what right had the gods to dangle salvation before a man's eyes, and then slay him when he grasped it? A sob rose in his throat. The gates of Paradise had rolled back for him at last--and must he die just inside them? His defiance grew. He would not be robbed of his salvation. To grasp it he had let go more than he dared think. The gods should not mock him with their gifts--or rather, merchandise. They should not take his awful price, and then deny the goods. Life should not suddenly turn and smile on him, and then hurry away. He called after departing Life--"I will not let thee go except thou bless me...." He bent his head and began to run. Then suddenly his mood changed. The power that had steadied his voice and straightened his back during his terrible interview with Janey, had not forsaken him now. He loved Tony Strife, and he was too proud in her love to play the coward. He would not run away from fate. It should not be said of Tony's lover that he had died running away. He stopped abruptly, swung round and faced Furlonger. Leonard was so surprised at this change of tactics that for a moment he did not speak. He stood staring at Lowe, his hands clenched, his muscles taut, his veins boiling and throbbing. The two men faced each other in the corner of a high field known as Cowsanish. On one side a hedgerow was whispering with winds, on the other the ground sloped downwards to a ruined outhouse--then it dipped suddenly, and the distance was full of mists, through which could be seen blotches of woods and farmhouse lights. The sky was still wind-swept and scattered with stars. "What do you want?" asked Lowe at last. Leonard mumbled a little before he spoke. "To wring your neck." "Why?" "You know why." Furlonger's mouth was working with passion, and his eyes were deliriously bright. He really meant to wring Lowe's neck. He had forgotten his earlier schemes of vengeance--nothing would suffice him now but the extreme, the uttermost. Lowe folded his arms across his chest, and called up all his memories of Tony.