Of course I had to kill him. . . .

Now I would have you believe I did not want to murder young Verrall
at all at that particular time. I had not pictured such circumstances
as these, I had never thought of him in connection with Lord Redcar
and our black industrial world. He was in that distant other world
of Checkshill, the world of parks and gardens, the world of sunlit
emotions and Nettie. His appearance here was disconcerting. I was
taken by surprise. I was too tired and hungry to think clearly, and
the hard implication of our antagonism prevailed with me. In the
tumult of my passed emotions I had thought constantly of conflicts,
confrontations, deeds of violence, and now the memory of these things
took possession of me as though they were irrevocable resolutions.

There was a sharp exclamation, the shriek of a woman, and the crowd
came surging back. The fight had begun.

Lord Redcar, I believe, had jumped down from his car and felled
Mitchell, and men were already running out to his assistance from
the colliery gates.

I had some difficulty in shoving through the crowd; I can still
remember very vividly being jammed at one time between two big men
so that my arms were pinned to my sides, but all the other details
are gone out of my mind until I found myself almost violently
projected forward into the "scrap."

I blundered against the corner of the motor-car, and came round it
face to face with young Verrall, who was descending from the back