Indeed, I felt the prick of his sword at my throat. I found I had to do something or be cut down. "Draw quickly or I will shoot you from your saddle, you villain!" cried Master Dunner, at that time interposing and presenting a huge old horse-pistol. There was nothing left for me. In a twinkling, my blade was in my hand. It had been restored to me by one of Stenwold's men ere they departed. As it gritted against my lord's steel, something of my self-control came back to me. He had been no mean fencer in his younger days, he could have matched any man in the three kingdoms doubtless, but now he was old, he had been some time in prison and was certainly out of practice. His force and fire were soon spent, I was his master, yet he never blenched, although he knew it as soon and as well as I. "I tremble," he said grimly, "from physical weakness, not from fear." "That I know," I answered. "Finish then; you have sold the daughter; spare not the father!" "My lord," said I, as by a sudden trick of fence I twisted his sword from his hands and flung it to the ground, "you wrong me. I neither connived at the abduction of my wife, nor will I requite your quite natural suspicion with what it merits." "Now is it in my mind," cried Master Dunner, seeing his patron's discomfiture and peril, "to pull the trigger of my pistol." "Do it and kill me if you will, but know that to do so is to destroy the only possible hope of rescue for the woman we all love," I returned quietly, determined to have this all over without more delay and put our affairs on a proper basis immediately. "What do you mean?" asked Master Dunner, pistol-muzzle wavering downward. "Think for a moment. I love your daughter, Lord Clanranald; I perilled my life and honour for her. I was attainted of treason and death had been my portion for her. I have had no communication with King James, save through your daughter. Could I, could any one, have foreseen the course of events that brought me to the Tolbooth and what hath happened since? It is absurd, sir, on its face. I wonder that you do not see it." "But Lord Stenwold?" asked Master Dunner, somewhat shaken by my reasoning. "Stenwold is a devil," I persisted. "Did not you see that he tried to convince me that Lady Katharine had made an agreement with the King?" "My life on her truth and honour!" cried the Earl. "Mine, too," said I quickly. "I would believe her innocent in the face of twenty kings, backed by as many Stenwolds." "But why did you sit so calmly by?" faltered the bewildered old man.