But the horse did not kill her, nor she it. Day after day she stood by
while it was taken from its stall, many a time dealing with it herself,
because no groom dare approach; and then she would ride it forth, and in
Hyde Park force it to obey her; the wondrous strength of her will, her
wrist of steel, and the fierce, pitiless punishment she inflicted,
actually daunting the devilish creature's courage. She would ride from
the encounter, through two lines of people who had been watching her--and
some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park
gate--almost awed as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on
the fretted, anguished beast, whose shining skin was covered with lather,
whose mouth tossed blood-flecked foam, and whose great eye was so
strangely like her own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph,
and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished. At such
times there was somewhat of fear in the glances that followed her beauty,
which almost seemed to blaze--her colour was so rich, the curve of her
red mouth so imperial, the poise of her head, with its loosening coils of
velvet black hair, so high.

"It is good for me that I do this," she said to Anne, with a short laugh,
one day. "I was growing too soft--and I have need now for all my power.
To fight with the demon in this beast, rouses all in me that I have held
in check since I became my poor lord's wife. That the creature should
have set his will against all others, and should resist me with such
strength and devilishness, rouses in me the passion of the days when I
cursed and raved and struck at those who angered me. 'Tis fury that
possesses me, and I could curse and shriek at him as I flog him, if
'twould be seemly. As it would not be so, I shut my teeth hard, and
shriek and curse within them, and none can hear."