"You
get out of my house! Get out, you Godless bastard!"
And though she was but a woman---though her blows were blocked and the
stick taken from her---the suddenness of her fury served its purpose.
The man believed her son was dead, and saw plainly there was nothing
more to be got out of her.
Yet in his answering rage he might still have done her serious injury,
if his son had not intervened. Henry Purceville pushed her back
against the stone hearth wall, and cocked his great fist for a blow
which might well have killed her. Stephen caught his father's arm and
pulled him away from her, slowly but firmly.
"You don't want to do this," he said.
"No one speaks to me like that. I'll kill her!"
"And give Earl Arthur the weapon he needs to call an Inquest? Destroy
yourself for a moment's passion?"
"She has defied me! I will
have my daughter brought before me."
"Then leave her to me, if that is all you want. I know more of this
family than you do. Promise me now, in front of her, give me your
word, that you will do nothing to harm the girl, or put her on trial
for conspiracy.
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