“Thou hypocrite!” she said; “thou pillar of Hawthorn Church and dependence of God on high and Master Clement! Thou hope of England! Thou searcher-out of iniquity and punisher of wrong-doing! Thou perceiver of high things and the meaning of the world! Thou judge and master in thy own conceit!—Thou plain and beast-like man, who wantest but one thing and knows not love, but lust—” He caught her in his arms. He was strong, but so was she. They struggled, swaying, their shadows, in firelight and candlelight, towering above them. They breathed hard—they uttered broken words, ejaculations. He was in the grasp of the brute past; she struggled with the energy of despair and hatred. She felt that he gained. Need taught her cunning. She seemed to give in his clasp, then, in the moment when he was deceived, she gathered all her strength, tore her arm free, and struck with the hunting-knife. The blade entered his side. She drew it out, encrimsoned. They fell apart, Carthew reeling against the wall. The colour ebbed from his face. He felt the bleeding, and thrusting a scarf within his doublet, strove to stanch it. As he leaned there, he kept his eyes upon her. But with the suddenness of the lightning their expression had changed. Wrath and defeat and shame were written in them; desire still, but mixed now with something baleful, with something not unlike hate. The bleeding continued. He felt a singing in his ears and a mist before his eyes. With the ice of the new mood came a sense of the peril of his position. Did he swoon here from loss of blood—grow so weak that he could not get away—be found here when day came—. The scandal flared out in letters of fire before him. He saw the face of Master Clement, and the faces of other and more powerful men of the faction, religious and political, with which he was becoming strongly identified.... He must get away—get home—framing some story as he went. His horse was near—the streaming blood seemed less. Joan stood like a dart, in her face blended relief and horror. They stared each at the other. “Do you remember,” said Carthew in a hollow voice, “in the forest there, I said that love might turn to hate? Beware lest it has turned!” “You may hate me,” said Joan. “You never loved me.” He took his eyes from her and moving haltingly to the door opened it. His horse was close outside, fastened within the small enclosure. Through the dark oblong, by the light of the half-moon, she saw him mount. He gathered up the reins, he held also by the horse’s mane. His face looked back at her for a moment, a ghastly, an enemy’s face. Then there was only the mournful night and Heron’s cottage, thatch-roofed, sunk among blossoming fruit trees from which the raindrops dripped, dripped. CHAPTER XV NEXT DAY