"Thee wrote me a letter, signed 'A True Friend,' and thee shall have my opinion of it, before I go into that house and remove from thee, at any peril that may be necessary, the poor girl thee has disgraced." "Set a foot nearer that house, if you dare!" was the reply. "Thee is a base, miserable coward, Dr. Philip!--a scoundrel, a seducer, a lying slanderer, the offspring of a female dog of the cur species, a disgrace to thy country and thy profession; and if thee knows any more hard words that I forget, thee may put them all in on my account." "Nathan Bladesden, do you think that you will leave this spot alive, after using such words to _me_!" and the hands of Philip Pomeroy were clutching at his wristbands as if rolling them up to put them out of the way of blood! The purpose of attack was reversed: he seemed to be about to spring, tiger-like, at the Quaker's throat. "_Thee_ will not kill me, Dr. Philip, if I do not!" the latter said. "I am stronger than thee, and have a better cause. I think I will not touch thee, but leave thee to thy Maker, if thee keeps thy hands off; but I have made up my mind, if thee touches me, to beat thee until thee has no shape of a man--until thee is dead as yonder gate-post. If thee thinks that I will not, thee had better try it!" Dr. Pomeroy did not believe himself a poltroon, nor was he one in that sense relating to purely physical courage. And had there been merely involved a conflict with that larger, stronger and better-preserved man, in which one or the other might suffer severe injury and disfigurement, he would have carried out his thought and sprung upon him, beyond a question. But something in those slow dropping pellets of compressed rage falling from the Quaker's lips, told the medical man (seldom too angry to be subtle and cunning), that in the event of a struggle, and the merchant getting the upper hand, he would probably carry out his threat and actually beat him to death with those heavy fists before any human aid could interpose. And to be mangled into a corpse by a Quaker--bah! there was really something in the idea, likely to calm blood quite as hot with rage as that of Dr. Philip--apart from the slight objection he may have had to being hurried into eternity in any way, at that moment. Then another thought struck him--a double one: how completely the Quaker would be at fault, searching through the house for Eleanor Hill; and how he was himself losing time, in that miserable quarrel--time that could never be regained. His horse and buggy stood all the while just within the opened gate, where the ostler had left it and gone back to his care of the blown animal at the stable; and as that important reflection forced itself upon his mind, he turned his back short upon the Quaker, strode to his buggy, stepped into it and dashed away, only pausing to hurl at his tormentor this one verbal bolt: