He fell back too, and asked if my horse was lame.

I replied with a look, at which he placidly smiled.
I was as much astonished as exasperated at this singular pertinacity and imperturbable assurance on his part.

I had thought the circumstances of our last meeting would have left such an impression on his mind as to render him cold and distant ever after: instead of that, he appeared not only to have forgotten all former offences, but to be impenetrable to all present incivilities.

Formerly, the slightest hint, or mere fancied coldness in tone or glance, had sufficed to repulse him: now, positive rudeness could not drive him away.

Had he heard of my disappointment; and was he come to witness the result, and triumph in my despair?
I grasped my whip with more determined energy than before--but still forbore to raise it, and rode on in silence, waiting for some more tangible cause of offence, before I opened the floodgates of my soul and poured out the dammed-up fury that was foaming and swelling within.
'Markham,' said he, in his usual quiet tone, 'why do you quarrel with your friends, because you have been disappointed in one quarter?
You have found your hopes defeated; but how am I to blame for it?
I warned you beforehand, you know, but you would not--' He said no more; for, impelled by some fiend at my elbow, I had seized my whip by the small end, and--swift and sudden as a flash of lightning--brought the other down upon his head.