But instead of another and
shriller shriek following the lash, came nothing but a shudder and a
silence and the unquailing eye of the girl fixed like that of a spectre
upon her assailant. He struck her again. Again came the shivering
shudder and the silence: the sense that the blows had not fallen upon
Corney upheld the brave creature. Cry she would not, if he killed her!
She once drew in her breath sharply, but never took her eyes from his
face--lay expecting the blow that was to come next. Suddenly the light
in them began to fade, and went quickly out; her head dropped like a
stone upon the breast of her cowardly husband, and there was not even
mute defiance more.
What if he had killed the woman! At an inquest! A trial for murder!--In
lowest depths Raymount saw a lower deep, and stood looking down on the
pair with subsiding passion.
Amy had walked all the long distance from the station and more, for she
had lost her way. Again and again she had all but lain down to die on
the moorland waste on to which she had wandered, when the thought of
Corney and his need of her roused her again. Wet through and through,
buffeted by the wind so that she could hardly breathe, having had
nothing but a roll to eat since the night before, but aware of the want
of food only by its faintness, cold to the very heart, and almost
unconscious of her numbed limbs, she struggled on.
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