"Yes. Do you know that I was to have married Mistress Royal?" Harwin assented again. "Who told you?" "Mistress Archdale." "Ah! yes, the little golden-haired one that thinks herself such a beauty." "She is infinitely more than she can think herself," cried Harwin. Edmonson turned upon him a look of malign triumph. "Ah!" he said. "You suffer, too." He was silent for an instant. "But then you think that you may yet win her," he said. "Who knows?" and he watched his listener closely, "Women are strange," he added. "She'd be flattered by your having been a scamp for her sake; she is not like the other one." He saw the light flash into Harwin's eyes and leave its bright mark along his cheek, and he smiled. "But you never shall," he said. "You might, but you never shall. Did you see what happened a minute ago?" he went on in stifled tones. "I shot her, and he carried her out,--not the yellow-haired one, oh, no, but,--Did you see his face?" he hissed with a look that made Harwin draw back at its fierceness. "But we shall be even; we will fight." He sat a moment watching Harwin, and then went on: "You will be interested in hearing that Mistress Archdale is engaged to Lord Bulchester, my friend. Your doings, too. But you shall pay for all," as Harwin stepped back in consternation. "Already, you see you've begun, but this is not the end." "Calm yourself," said Harwin laying his hand nervously on the other's shoulder, "control yourself. This is very bad, if you're wounded." "Control myself!" sneered Edmonson. "I never have done it in my life, and I'm not likely to do it now at the command of a coward and a sneak. Now will you fight with me?" "Certainly. But I want to know why it is with you?"