It was directly
after receiving one of these in his arm, that Mr Haredale, making a
keener thrust as he felt the warm blood spirting out, plunged his sword
through his opponent's body to the hilt.
Their eyes met, and were on each other as he drew it out. He put his
arm about the dying man, who repulsed him, feebly, and dropped upon the
turf. Raising himself upon his hands, he gazed at him for an instant,
with scorn and hatred in his look; but, seeming to remember, even then,
that this expression would distort his features after death, he tried
to smile, and, faintly moving his right hand, as if to hide his bloody
linen in his vest, fell back dead--the phantom of last night.
Chapter the Last
A parting glance at such of the actors in this little history as it has
not, in the course of its events, dismissed, will bring it to an end.
Mr Haredale fled that night. Before pursuit could be begun, indeed
before Sir John was traced or missed, he had left the kingdom. Repairing
straight to a religious establishment, known throughout Europe for the
rigour and severity of its discipline, and for the merciless penitence
it exacted from those who sought its shelter as a refuge from the world,
he took the vows which thenceforth shut him out from nature and
his kind, and after a few remorseful years was buried in its gloomy
cloisters.
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