saying: "I will not murder him. I must not do
that. He deserves death, but vengeance is not mine. I will disarm him."
Step by step he retreated, playing erratically to make an opening for a
trick he meant to use.

It was singularly loose play, a sort of wavering, shifty,
incomprehensible show of carelessness, that caused Hamilton to
entertain a doubt, which was really a fear, as to what was going to
happen; for, notwithstanding all this neglect of due precaution on the
priest's part, to touch him seemed impossible, miraculously so, and
every plan of attack dissolved into futility in the most maddening way.

"Priest, devil or ghost!" raged Hamilton, with a froth gathering around
his mouth; "I'll kill you, or--"

He made a longe, when his adversary left an opening which appeared
absolutely beyond defence. It was a quick, dextrous, vicious thrust.
The blade leaped toward Father Beret's heart with a twinkle like
lightning.

At that moment, although warily alert and hopeful that his opportunity
was at hand, Father Beret came near losing his life; for as he
side-stepped and easily parried Hamilton's thrust, which he had
invited, thinking to entangle his blade and disarm him, he caught his
foot in Alice's skirt and stumbled, nearly falling across her. It would
have been easy for Hamilton to run him through, had he instantly
followed up the advantage. But the moonlight on Alice's face struck his
eyes, and by that indirect ray of vision which is often strangely
effective, he recognized her lying there. It was a disconcerting thing
for him, but he rallied instantly and sprang aside, taking a new
position just in time to face Father Beret again. A chill crept up his
back. The horror which he could not shake off enraged him beyond
measure. Gathering fresh energy, he renewed the assault with desperate
steadiness the highest product of absolutely molten fury.

Father Beret felt the dangerous access of power in his antagonist's
arm, and knew that a crisis had arrived. He could not be careless now.
Here was a swordsman of the best school calling upon him for all the
skill and strength and cunning that he could command. Again the saintly
element was near being thrown aside by the worldly in the old man's
breast. Alice lying there seemed mutely demanding that he avenge her. A
riotous something in his blood clamored for a quick and certain act in
this drama by moonlight--a tragic close by a stroke of terrible yet
perfectly fitting