Furlonger sprang forward and seized Quentin by the throat. For a moment they swayed together, Lowe snatching at the other's hands and struggling with the frenzy of despair. His eyes bulged, his lips blackened, and still he fought. Then the darkness began to rush over him--first in little clouds, then in long, black sweeps. "Janey!... Janey!" he cried. He opened his eyes at last. He was lying under the hedge, his cheek scratched, his hands twisted in the grass. He stirred feebly, then sat up, still crouching back against the hazel. Furlonger lay prone among the buttercups, his chin turned up sharply, the moonlight blazing on his face. Then Lowe remembered how things had happened--how the sickening grip on his throat had suddenly relaxed, and he had gone crashing backwards into the brambles, while something fell with a heavy thud at his feet. He wondered if Furlonger was dead. He went and looked into his face. The features were strangely drawn, and there was a look of desperate anxiety in their contraction. Then suddenly the eyes opened and looked up into Lowe's, full of terror and fever. "What's happened? Who's there? Oh, my God!" Remembrance had come with a spasm of that ghastly face. Leonard sat up in the grass, and held his hands to his head. "I'm ill, I think," he muttered. He must have fainted--fainted through the stress and horror of it all, just when his enemy's breath had nearly sobbed away under his hands. "You'd better go home," said Quentin. Leonard did not speak. He still sat there in a piteous huddle--and then suddenly tremor after tremor began to go through him. He shuddered from head to foot, his teeth chattered, and his limbs shook so that he could not rise. "I want some water--I want something to drink," he panted. Quentin put his hands under his shoulders to help him get up. He felt quite generously towards him now. He had been snatched by a timely accident from death, and could afford to pity this poor fellow who had tried to kill him, but failed. "Let me help you home." "No--by God!" "Let me--you're ill." "Yes, I was ill when I started after you--or you wouldn't be alive and grinning at me now. I was a fool--I should have waited. But look out for me another day, you skunk!" The ghastly rigor choked his last words. The look of terror and anxiety deepened on his face. Then at last he managed to stumble up. "I--I'm going home," he stuttered, and felt sick as he realised he would have to pass again through Goatsluck Wood. "And you won't let me go with you?" "No--I shan't let myself owe you anything, for I mean to kill you some day." "I advise you not to threaten me--I might be obliged to take proceedings against you." "A pretty mess you'd be in if you did. I suppose you don't want your new girl to hear about Janey?" Quentin flushed. "If I wasn't obliged to shield my sister," continued Len, "I'd tell that girl myself. But you know my tongue's tied--besides, I'd rather kill you."