“So much for your coat, my lord! And now for yourself—let us make an end ... you shall receive your quietus on the count of three.... One! Two!” A sudden clashing of desperate steel, then my lord leapt out of distance and, uttering a hoarse cry of bitter despair, hurled his useless sword from him and stood dreadfully pale, bathed in sweat, and, striving to voice his passionate hate, gasped mouthing incoherencies. “Take up your sword, sir—take up ... your sword and ... let us finish!” panted Sir John. But Lord Sayle folded his arms, staring upon his antagonist with eyes of murder. Then Sir John laughed. “What, have ye enough, sir?” he questioned scornfully. “Are ye done so soon and never a drop o’ blood, nor so much as a scratch?” Receiving no answer, he laughed again and turned his back. “Robert,” he cried—“Robert, see the pitiful fellow off my land.” Stung to madness, Lord Sayle reached swiftly for his fallen sword, but the Corporal was before him and, snapping the weapon across his knee, tossed the pieces aside. “My lord,” said he, “your horse is yonder, I think.” Lord Sayle raised haggard face from earth to sky, stared round him upon the gaping throng with expression bordering on despair, and strode whither the Corporal’s finger pointed. And, as he went, the skirts of his brown velvet coat fluttered grotesquely about him, yet of all who watched, no one spoke, much less laughed. Reaching his horse, he mounted and, without one backward glance, gathered up the reins and, spurring savagely, galloped away, leaving his friends and servants to follow as they would. “And now, Hector,” said Sir John, catching up his hat, “what of old Penelope? How is she?” “Guid forgi’e me, Johnnie, I clean forgot the puir soul.” Reaching the little cottage, they found its new-planted garden a trampled wilderness, its windows shattered, its newly painted door battered from its hinges, and within, a scene of cruel wreckage. “Ah, well,” laughed Sir John fiercely, “my Lord Sayle yet lives!” And then was a light foot upon the dark stair and my Lady Herminia faced them, very pale. “Guid be thankit ye’re here, my bonny Rose!” exclaimed Sir Hector fervently. “Hoo is yon puir Penelope?” “Alive, sir! You were in time, I thank God. I have put her to bed and shall remain with her. I pray you bid my aunt to me hither and the maid Betty.” “Ah, Rose,” cried Sir Hector, catching my lady’s hands and kissing them, “thou bonny, muckle-hearted lass! O Johnnie, was there e’er sic a maid as our Rose?” “Never, Hector—there never was! For Gad’s my life, Rose is not, was not, nor ever will be——” “Eh—eh, Johnnie?” “The lady before us, Hector, is merely that blooming ‘toast,’ the bewitching Barrasdaile.” “Losh, man John, wha’s a’ this?” “This, Hector, is the Lady Herminia Barrasdaile, niece to her Grace the Duchess of Connington, whom we know here as ‘Mrs. Saunders.’ But as for our loved Rose, alas, she was no more than a passing whim!”