Balhaldie! blethering Balhaldie!" cried Doom, contempt upon his
countenance. "And Balhaldie would sell him, I'll warrant. He seems, this
Drimdarroch, to have been dooms unlucky in his friends. I say all I've
said to you, Count, because you're bound to find it out for yourself
some day if you prosecute your search here, and you might be coming
round to me at last with your ower-ready pistol when I was ill-prepared
to argue out my identity. Furthermore, I do not know the man you want.
About the castle down-by his Grace has a corps of all kinds that you
might pick from nine times out of ten without striking an honest man.
Some of them are cadets of his own family, always blunt opponents of
mine and of our cause here and elsewhere; some are incomers, as we call
them; a few of them from clans apparently friendly to us when in other
quarters, but traitors and renegades at the heart; some are spies by
habit and repute. There's not a friend of mine among them, not in all
the fat and prosperous rabble of them; but I wish you were here on
another errand, though to Doom, my poor place, you are welcome. I am a
widower, a lonely man, with my own flesh and blood rebel against me"--he
checked his untimeous confidence--"and yet I have been chastened by
years and some unco experiences from a truculent man to one preferring
peace except at the last ditch."

"_Eh bien!_ Monsieur; _this_ is the last ditch!" said Montaiglon. "Spy
and murderer, M. le Baron, and remember I propose to give him more than
the murderer's chance when I agree to meet him on a fair field with a
sword in his hand."

"I have seen you lunge, sir," said Doom meaningly; "I ken the carriage
of a fencer's head; your eye's fast, your step's light; with the sword
I take it Drimdarroch is condemned, and your practice with the pistol,
judging from the affair with the Macfarlanes, seems pretty enough. You
propose, or I'm mistaken, to make yourself the executioner. It is a step
for great deliberation, and for the sake of a wanton woman--"

"Sir!" cried Montaiglon, half rising in his chair.

Doom's eyes gleamed, a quiver ran over his brow, and a furrow came to
the jaw; his hand went to his side, where in other days there might
have been a dagger. It was the flash of a moment, and died again almost
before Montaiglon had seen and understood.

"_Mille pardons!_" said Doom with uncouth French. "I used the word in
its most innocent sense, with its kindliest meaning; but I was a fo