"Your friend seems in need of assistance," said Elmscott. For Marston lay on the road struggling to free himself from the weight of the horse. Cliffe loosened the saddle and helped Marston to his feet. Then he drew aside and stood silent, looking at his companion with a questioning disdain. Marston returned the look with a proud indifference, which, in spite of myself, I could not but admire. "There was more courage than cowardice in the act," said I, "to those who understand it." "I can do without your approbation," said Marston, flushing, as he turned sharply upon me. Catching sight of my face, he smiled. "Did the whip sting?" he asked. I unsheathed my sword, and without another word we mounted the bank on the left side of the road and passed on to the heath. The seconds chose a spot about a hundred yards from the highway, where the turf was level and smooth, and set us facing north and south, so that neither might get advantage from the sun. The morning was very clear and bright, with just here and there a feather of white cloud in the blue of the sky; and our swords shone in the sunlight like darting tongues of flame. The encounter was of the shortest, since we were in no condition to plan or execute the combinations of a cool and subtle attack, but drove at each other with the utmost fury. Marston wounded me in the forearm before ever I touched him. But a few seconds after that he had pinked me, he laid his side open, and I passed my sword between his ribs. He staggered backwards, swayed for a moment to and fro in an effort to keep his feet; his knees gave under him, and he sank down upon the heath, his fingers clasping and unclasping convulsively about the pommel of his sword. Cliffe lifted him in his arms and strove to staunch the blood, which was reddening through his shirt, while Elmscott ran to the inn and hurried off to Hungerford for a surgeon. For awhile I stood on my ground, idly digging holes in the grass with the point of my rapier. Then Marston called me faintly, and I dropped the sword and went to his side. His face was white and sweaty, and the pupils of his eyes were contracted to pin-points. I knelt down and bent my head close to his. "So," he whispered, "luck sides with you after all. This time I thought that I had won the vole." He was silent for a minute or so, and then: "I want to speak with you alone." I took him from Cliffe's arms and supported his head upon my knee, he pressing both his hands tightly upon his side. "Betty is afraid," he continued, with a gasp between each word, as soon as Cliffe had left us. "Betty is afraid, and her husband's a fool." The implied request, even at that moment, struck me as wonderfully characteristic of the man. So long as his own desires were at stake he disregarded his sister's fears; but no sooner had all chance of gaining them failed, than his affection for her reasserted itself, and even drove him to the length of asking help from his chief enemy.