She could not go on. But she had said enough to carry, even to a brain composed of pure clay, the conviction that the acquiescence he demanded was not a thing to be easily won. He thought of his brother-in-law’s enigmatic note. Possibly the owner of Leo’s Hill had ways of persuading recalcitrant foreign girls that were quite hidden from him. The psychological irony of the thing lay in the fact that in proportion as her terror increased, his desire for her increased proportionally. Had she been willing,--had she been even passive and indifferent,--the curious temperament of Mr. Goring would have been scarcely stirred. He might have gone on pursuing her, out of spite or out of obstinacy; but the pursuit would have been no more than an interlude, a distraction, among his other affairs. But that look of absolute terror on her face--the look of a hunted animal under the hot breath of the hounds--appealed to something profoundly deep in his nature. Oddly enough--such are the eccentricities of the human mind--the very craving to possess her which her terror excited, was accompanied by a rush of extraordinary pity for himself as the object of her distaste. He let her pass--making no movement to interrupt her escape. He let her hurry out of the garden and into the road--without a word; but as soon as she was gone, he sat down on the wooden seat under the front of the house and resting his head upon his chin began blubbering like a great baby. Big salt tears fell from his small pig’s eyes, rolled down his tanned cheeks, and falling upon the dust caked it into little curious globules. Two wandering ants of a yellowish species, dragging prisoner after them one of a black kind, encountered these minute globes of sand and sorrow, and explored them with interrogatory feelers. Mingled with this feeling of pity for himself under the girl’s disdain was a remarkable wave of immense tenderness and consideration for her. Short of letting her escape him, how delicately he would cherish, how tenderly he would pet and fondle her, how assiduously he would care for her! The consciousness of this emotion of soft tenderness towards the girl increased his pity for himself under the weight of the girl’s contempt. How ungrateful she was! And yet that very look of terror, that stifled cry of the hunted hare, which made him so resolved to win her, produced in him an exquisite feeling of melting regard for her youth, her softness, her fragility. When she did belong to him, oh how tenderly he would treat her! How he would humour her and give her everything she could want!