He would like to pay somebody out for the wrongs under which he was suffering--who, or how, was of little moment.

He had been wounded, he wanted to hit back.
He turned off the Coupee to the left and struck down through the gorse and bracken towards the Pot, and then crept along the cliffs and across the fields towards La Closerie--still for three days his, in the reversion; after that, gone from him irrevocably--a galling shame and not to be borne by any man that called himself a man.
Should he lie in the hedge and shoot down the old man as he came in from those cursed mines which had started all the trouble?
Or should he walk right into the house and shoot and fell whatever he came across?
If he must suffer it would at all events be some satisfaction to think that he had made them suffer too.
From where he stood he could look right in through the open door, and could hear their voices--Nance and Bernel and Mrs.Hamon--the interlopers, the schemers, the stealers of his rights.
The shaft of light was eclipsed suddenly as Nance came out and tripped across the yard on some household duty.
He remembered how he used to terrify her by springing out of the darkness at her.

She had helped to bring all this trouble about.
Why should he not--?
Why should he not--?
And while his gun still shook in his hands to the wild throbbing of his pulses, Nance passed out of his sight into the barn.
The deed a man may do on the spur of the moment, when his brain is on fire, is not so readily done when it has to be thought about.
Then Mrs.Hamon came to the door, and called to Nance to bring with her a piece or two of wood for the fire.
Here was his chance! Here was the head and front of the offence, past, present, and future! If she had never come into the family there would have been no Nance, no Bernel, no selling of the farm, maybe.

A movement of the arms, the crooking of a finger, and things would be even between them.
But--it would still be he who would have to pay--as always! All through he had been the sufferer, and if he did this thing he must suffer still more--always he who must pay.
The man who hesitates is lost, or saved.

When the contemplator of evil deeds begins also to contemplate consequences, reason is beginning to resume her sway.
Then he heard heavy footsteps and voices.