urges. He was watching anxiously the point at which the
pale gray wall of fog was thickest, a wall of inconceivable height,
resting on the sea, reaching to the clouds, when suddenly there
emerged from it a beautifully built schooner-yacht. She cut her way
through the mysterious barrier as if she had been a knife, and came
forward with short, stubborn plunges.

All over the North Sea there are desolate places full of the cries of
parting souls, but nowhere more desolate spaces than around Fenwick
Castle; and as the winter was approaching, Ulfar was anxious to escape
its loneliness. His yacht had been taking in supplies; she was making
for the pier at the foot of Fenwick Cliff, and he was dressed for the
voyage and about to start upon it. He was going to the Mediterranean,
to Civita Vecchia, and his purpose was the filial one of bringing home
the remains of the late baronet. He had promised faithfully to see
them laid with those of his fore-elders on the windy Northumberland
coast; and he felt that this duty must be done, ere he could
comfortably travel the westward route he had so long desired.

He was slowly buttoning his pilot-coat, when he heard a heavy step
upon the flagged passage. Many such steps had been up and down it
that hour, but none with the same fateful sound. He turned his face
anxiously to the door, and as he did so, it was flung open, as if by
an angry man, and William Anneys walked in, frowning and handling his
big walking-stick with a subdued passion that filled the room as if it
had been suddenly charged with electricity. The two men looked
steadily at each other, neither of them flinching, neither of them
betraying by the movement of an eyelash the emotion that sent the
blood to their faces and the wrath to their eyes.

"William Anneys! What do you want?"

"I want you to set your wedding-day. It must not be later than the
fifteenth of this month."

"Suppose I refuse to do so? I am going to Italy for my father's
body."

"You shall not leave England until you marry my sister."

"Suppose I refuse to do so?"

"Then you will have to take your chances of life or death. You will
give me satisfaction first; and if you escape the fate you well
deserve, Brune may have better fortune."

"Duelling is now murder, sir, unless we pass over to France."

"I will not go to France. Wrestling is not murder, and we both know
there is a 'throw' to kill; and I will 'throw' until I do kill,--or am
killed. There