"I have said my say; your belief matters naught to me. One thing I ask you. Where has the girl Marjory gone? If fate decides against you, it is but right I should have her." "Nay," I cried, passionately, "that you never shall. You have caused her enough grief already. She hates the sight of you even as I, and I will do nothing to make her fall into your hands." "It matters little," he said, with a shrug of his great shoulders. "It was only a trifling civility which I sought from you. Let us get to work." From a rack he picked a blade, one such as he always used in any serious affray, single-edged and basket-hiked. Then he signed to me to follow, and opened the window and stepped out. The morning was murky and damp. Fog clothed the trees and fields, and a smell of rottenness hung in the air. I shivered, for my clothes were thin and old. Gilbert walked quickly, never casting a look behind him. First we crossed the sodden lawn, and then entered the pine wood, which I had skirted on the night before. In a little we heard the roaring of water and came to the banks of the stream, which, swollen by the melting snows, was raving wildly between the barriers of the banks. At the edge was a piece of short turf, some hundred yards square, and drier than the rest of the ground which we had traversed. Here Gilbert stopped and bade me get ready. I had little to do save cast my coat, and stand stripped and shivering, waiting while my enemy took his ground. The next I know is that I was in the thick of a deadly encounter, with blows rattling on my blade as thick as hail. My cousin’s eyes glared into mine, mad with anger and regret, with all the unrequited love and aimless scheming of months concentrated in one fiery passion. I put forth my best skill, but it was all I could do to keep death from me. As it was I was scratched and grazed in a dozen places, and there was a great hole in my shirt which the other’s blade had ripped. The sweat began to trickle over my eyes with the exertion, and my sight was half dazed by the rapid play. Now it so happened that I had my back to the stream. This was the cause of my opponent’s sudden violence, for he sought to drive me backwards, that, when I found myself near the water, I might grow bewildered. But I had been brought up to this very trick, for in the old days in Tweeddale, Tam Todd would have taken his stand near the Tweed and striven to force me back into the great pool. In my present danger these old memories came back to me in a flood, and in a second I was calm again. This, after all, was only what I had done a thousand times for sport. Could I not do it once for grim earnest?