o ask, steadily, "Were
you weary of your life, to have done all this, and then come here to
tell me so?"

Waring laughed drearily.

"Weary? So weary that, if it had not been for scruples you can not
understand, I would have got rid of it long ago. But I need not inflict
my confidences on you, and I don't choose to see the drift of your
question."

The devil had so thoroughly by this time possessed Royston Keene, that
even his voice was changed into a hoarse, guttural whisper. "I asked,
because I mean to kill you."

Mark's gaze met the savage eyes that gleamed like a famished panther's,
with an expression too calm for defiance, though there might have been
perhaps a shade of contempt.

"Of course I shall guard my own life as best I may, either here or
elsewhere, but I do not apprehend it is in great danger. There is an old
proverb about 'threatened men;' they are not killed so easily as women
are betrayed. Beyond the simplest self-defense, I warn you that I shall
not resent any insult or attack. I will not meet you in the field; and
as for any personal struggle, I don't think that even you would like to
make Cecil Tresilyan the occasion for a broil that might suit two
drunken peasants."

Though shorter by half a head, and altogether cast in a less colossal
mould, as he stood there, with his square, well-knit frame, and bold
Saxon face, he looked no contemptible antagonist to confront the swarthy
giant. In utter insensibility to fear and carelessness of consequences
(so far as they could affect a steady resolve), the Cool Captain had met
his match at last. Even then, in the crisis of his stormy passion, he
was able to appreciate a hardihood so congenial to his own character;
pondering upon these things afterward, he always confessed that at this
juncture, and indeed all throughout, his opponent had very much the best
of it. Ferocity and violence seemed puerile and out of place when
contrasted with that tranquil audacity. He covered his eyes with his
hand for a moment or so, and when he raised his face it had recovered
its natural impassibility, though the ghastly pallor still remained.
Besides, the truth of Waring's last words struck him forcibly. He
muttered under his breath, "By G--d, he's right _there_, at all events;"
then he said aloud, "Well, it appears you won't fight, so there is
little more to be said between us. You think you can thwart my purposes
or mould them as you like. We'll try it. I told you I ha