as afraid that Archdale was too much of a Puritan to
think of duelling.

"Don't tire yourself fanning me," he said. "Talk to me a little."

"I have nothing to say," answered Elizabeth. For it happened that she
also was remembering that night in the boat as she had heard of it, and
it seemed hard to her that she should be obliged to render Edmonson the
smallest service, yet he had been brave in the attack, and had been
wounded in fair fight against the enemy. Her first thought that night of
the attack, on seeing him borne in, had been that Archdale had given the
wound in self-defence. She was humiliated by feeling that her wealth had
been played for like a stake by Edmonson. For she had not yet come to
confessing to herself what flashed across her mind sometimes. Two years
ago Edmonson's approval had seemed to her a desert beyond her talents;
now his admiration displeased her,--there was an element of
appropriation in it. Where Elizabeth prized regard she could not
condescend to woo it; where she did not prize it, it seemed to her, if
openly given, almost an impertinence. Stephen had been right when in the
midst of his anger at her pride he had felt that love would awake new
powers in her, that she could be magnificent in action and in devotion.
He had been very human, too, in the breath of wild desire to see her at
her best that had swept through him. But the desire slept again as
suddenly as it had waked, and the mists of indifference settled about
him once more.

Edmonson dared not speak. If he offended Elizabeth he should not see her
again, except at a distance as real as the intangible space always
between them now. And if he were silent, he might yet win, some day.

"At last!" she smiled, and rose to meet the doctor with an alacrity that
made Edmonson bite his under lip hard. She thought that dressing the
wound took a long time that evening, that the physician had never been
so slow before, nor the patient so fractious. But to Edmonson it seemed
as if she vanished like a vision.

At last she was in the open air, under the stars, and refreshed by the
breeze. She stood looking out to sea, but there was an expression of
trouble on her face, that the air could not blow away.

A voice said, "Good evening," and, turning, she saw Archdale beside her.
She asked him if he were on guard that evening.

"Yes," he answered. "You must be very tired, cooped up in that hot place
for so many hours," he went on. "Shall we wal