“Defend yourself,” cried Lord Avondale fiercely. “If it is thy mad wish, then be it so, and now stand off.” Saying this, Glenarvon accepted the pistol, and at the same moment that Lord Avondale discharged his, he fired in the air. “This shall not save you,” cried Lord Avondale, in desperation. “Treat me not like a child. Glenarvon, prepare. One of us shall die.—Traitor!—villain!” “Madman,” said Glenarvon scornfully, “take your desire; and if one of us indeed must fall, be it you.” As he spoke, his livid countenance betrayed the malignity of his soul. He discharged his pistol full at his adversary’s breast. Lord Avondale staggered for a moment. Then, with a sudden effort, “The wound is trifling,” he cried, and, flying from the proffered assistance of Glenarvon, mounted his horse, and gallopped from the place. No seconds, no witnesses, attended this dreadful scene. It took place upon the bleak moors behind Inis Tara’s heights, just at the hour of the setting sun. “I could have loved that man,” said Glenarvon, as he watched him in the distance. “He has nobleness, generosity, sincerity. I only assume the appearance of those virtues. My heart and his must never be compared: therefore I am compelled to hate him:—but O! not so much as I abhor myself.” Thus saying, he turned with bitterness from the steep, and descended with a firm step by the side of the mountain. Glenarvon stopped not for the rugged pathway; but he paused to look again upon the stream of Elle, as it came rushing down the valley: and he paused to cast one glance of welcome upon Inis Tara, Glenarvon bay, and the harbour terminating the wide extended prospect. The myrtles and arbutes grew luxuriantly, intermixed with larch and firs. The air was hot: the ground was parched and dry. The hollow sound of the forests; the murmuring noise of the waves of the sea; the tinkling bell that at a distance sounded from the scattered flocks—all filled his heart with vague remembrances of happier days, and sad forebodings of future sorrow. As he approached the park of Castle Delaval, he met with some of the tenantry, who informed him of Calantha’s death.