There was only another round, and it was very short. Richard Frayne, with every nerve twitching with rage and indignation, followed up his second blow with others, planted so truly, and with such effect, that within a minute he was driving his adversary back step by step, till, blind now with fury, he put all his strength and weight into a blow which sent Mark down like a piece of wood, to lie, inert, with his head resting against the broken, lichen-covered fragment of an arch. "Steady! Hold hard!" shouted a couple of voices, and the two young fellow-pupils, who had followed, leaped down through a broken window, from whence, hidden by the ivy, they had watched the fray. "You second Dick Frayne," cried the first, "and I'll see to Mark." Richard hardly heard what was said, for there was a sound as of surging waters in his ears, followed by a roar of words that seemed to thunder. For, as the last speaker went down on one knee to raise up the fallen lad, he uttered a cry of horror, and then let the young man's head hurriedly down, to shrink away with his hands fouled by blood. "What is it?" cried the other, running forward; while Richard's hands clutched at the air. "What is it?--cut?" "Cut!" sobbed out the other. "A doctor!--quick! Dick Frayne, what have you done? He's dead!" CHAPTER THREE. TWO PACES TO THE REAR. After plunging as we did head first into the great trouble of Sir Richard Frayne's life, I must ask my readers to let me go back, in military parlance, "two paces to the rear," so as to enter into a few explanations as to the position of the cousins, promising that the interpolation shall be neither tedious nor long. Only a short time before Richard Frayne struck that unlucky blow, general-valet Jerry entered the room with-- "Here you are, Sir Richard, two pairs; and your shoes is getting thin in the sole." "Then I must have a new pair, Jerry." "Why don't you have 'arf dozen pairs in on account, sir, like Mr Mark do?" "Look here, Jerry, if you worry me now, I shall throw something at you." Jeremiah Brigley, who had just put down two pairs of newly-polished shoes, rubbed his nose meditatively with the cuff of his striped morning jacket, and then tapped an itching place on his head with the clothes-brush he held in his hand, as he stared down at the owner of the shoes--a good-looking, fair, intent lad of nearly eighteen, busy over a contrivance which rested upon a pile of mathematical and military books on the table of the well-furnished room overlooking the Cathedral Close of Primchilsea busy city.