ges of it."

He stared at her in a long, furious silence, then exploded into oaths,
and finally inveighed against her unnaturalness and pronounced her
bewitched by that foul dog Tressilian.

"It is fortunate for me," she answered him composedly, "that he was here
before you to give me the truth of this affair." Then her assumed calm
and the anger with which she had met his own all fell away from her.
"Oh, Peter, Peter," she cried in anguish, "I hope that Sir John will
recover. I am distraught by this event. But be just, I implore you. Sir
Oliver has told me how hard-driven he had been."

"He shall be driven harder yet, as God's my life! If you think this deed
shall go unpunished...."

She flung herself upon his breast and implored him to carry this quarrel
no further. She spoke of her love for Sir Oliver and announced her firm
resolve to marry him in despite of all opposition that could be made,
all of which did not tend to soften her brother's humour. Yet because of
the love that ever had held these two in closest bonds he went so far
in the end as to say that should Sir John recover he would not himself
pursue the matter further. But if Sir John should die--as was very
likely--honour compelled him to seek vengeance of a deed to which he had
himself so very largely contributed.

"I read that man as if he were an open book," the boy announced, with
callow boastfulness. "He has the subtlety of Satan, yet he does not
delude me. It was at me he struck through Killigrew. Because he desires
you, Rosamund, he could not--as he bluntly told me--deal with me however
I provoked him, not even though I went the length of striking him. He
might have killed me for't; but he knew that to do so would place a
barrier 'twixt him and you. Oh! he is calculating as all the fiends of
Hell. So, to wipe out the dishonour which I did him, he shifts the blame
of it upon Killigrew and goes out to kill him, which he further thinks
may act as a warning to me. But if Killigrew dies...." And thus he
rambled on, filling her gentle heart with anguish to see this feud
increasing between the two men she loved best in all the world. If the
outcome of it should be that either were to kill the other, she knew
that she could never again look upon the survivor.

She took heart at last in the memory of Sir Oliver's sworn promise that
her brother's life should be inviolate to him, betide what might. She
trusted him; she depended upon his word and that rar