Mistress Wayne ran forward and threw her arms about her lover. "Don’t fight, Dick; he will kill thee, kill thee," she pleaded. "I want to get away from this ghostly place—it frightens me, I tell thee, and Saxilton is a far journey, and the night wears late. Dick, I will not let thee fight." "Ay, Mistress, he will fight, since there is no chance of escape left him. You will fight, Ratcliffe of Wildwater, will you not?" Nell Wayne, standing in the shadows, grew furious with impatience; nor could she understand why Rolf kept his temper in such grim check, unless it were that Ratcliffe needed to be whipped into the duel. "You will fight?" repeated Wayne, anger fretting at his voice. "To the death, curse you," muttered Ratcliffe, and moved slowly up toward the stone. "That is well. You are a better man than you showed yourself once in the Marsh orchard—and Mistress Wayne here has cause to be proud of a lover who does not run away a second time, leaving her to meet the danger." Mistress Wayne glanced desperately from side to side in search of aid, and her eyes fell on Nell’s figure, standing half out of the yew shadows now. "God pity us! ’Tis Nell," she cried. The girl came out from the shadows and stood at her stepmother’s side. "Could you not wait for one whole day?" said she. "You are very quick to make your pleasures sure. Father scarce cold, and your lover’s blade scarce wiped—truly, you loved my father well!" "’Twas not my fault—I—child, your hands hurt me—how dare you treat me so?" stammered Mistress Wayne. For the girl, passion-driven for the moment, had gripped the dainty light-of-love by the shoulders and nigh riven the breath out of her. "How dare I?" she flashed. "Keep quiet, Mistress, lest I dwell over-much on the wrong you did to father." "But, Helen, I am your mother. Let me go, child; let me go, I say. They shall not fight." "Mother, say you? Mother sleeps under the stone yonder. The world has been hard to me, Mistress, but it never made you kith of mine." Mistress Wayne began to whimper, and Nell, losing her hold with a sort of hard disdain, fixed her eyes on the swordsmen, standing on the vault-stone and eyeing each other steadfastly, their sword-blades catching blue-grey glances from the moon. For Wayne of Cranshaw had been moving backward all the while, not daring to turn his face from Dick Ratcliffe lest a foul thrust in the back should end the matter. Yet Ratcliffe still held off, nor would he plant his forefoot squarely in position; and Nell, fearful lest he should refuse combat at the eleventh hour, and knowing that Rolf would never strike down a man except in fight, so taunted and stung and whipped the laggard with her tongue that his heart grew bold with fury.