"She does not know me, or she would not dare to do it. There is no one in all the neighbourhood dare defy me but she. Everyone fears me but she, for everyone knows me but she. Know me she must, know me she shall. There will be no wringing love out of her till she bends under me and fears me. She will never fear me till she knows all. She shall know that; by God!" he cried aloud, "I will tell her that which shall make her shrink and fall, and whine at my feet; and then I shall take her up, and drag her to my heart, and say, 'Ah, ha! Glory! think what a man you have gotten to-day, a man whom none can withstand. There is none like me, there is none will dare what I will dare. You and I, I and you, are alone in the world. One must submit or there is no peace. You must learn to cower beneath me, or we shall fight for ever.'"
He went out again upon the sea-wall, but saw nothing, and came back more angry. As he stood on his steps he heard from the path to Salcot a burst of merriment. He swore an ugly oath. Those men, rolling home, were ridiculing him, keeping his marriage feast without the presence of his bride!
He flung himself again into his chair, and rocked himself in it. He could not sit there, tortured with anger and love, in the gloaming, doing nothing. He emptied the bottle, there was not a drop more in it, and he cast it on the hearth. Then he fetched down his old musket mounted in brass, and getting the vitriol bottle from the window, began to rub and polish the metal.
He wearied of that in the end. His mind could not be drawn off Glory, and wondering where she was, and why she had thus gone away.
"I love her," he muttered, as he replaced his gun on the nails above the chimneypiece, "but yet I hate her. My very heart is like Grimshoe with love and hate warring together, and neither gets the mastery. I could clasp her to my breast, but I could tear out her heart with my nails, because it will not love me." He rocked himself in his seat savagely, and his breath came fast: "We must work the riddle out between us. We can get no help, no light from any others; she and I, and I and she, are each other's best friends and worst foes."
