For a long time I had felt that it must be so. Yet to hear him confess it so calmly, and without even the most ordinary emotion, was a shock to me. “It is the same thing,” she said, scornfully, “you killed him!” “In the eyes of the law it is not the same thing,” he answered; “but let that pass. I had warned your brother most solemnly that if he took a certain course I should meet him as man to man, and I should show him no mercy. Yet he persisted in that course. He came to my home! I had warned him not to come. Even then I forbore. His errand was fruitless. He had only become a horror in the eyes of the woman whom he had deceived. She would not see him, she wished never to look upon his face again. He persisted in seeking to force his way into her presence. On that day I met him. I argued and reasoned with him, but in vain. Then the first blow was struck, and only the merest chance intervened, or the situation would have been reversed. Your brother was a coward then, Olive Berdenstein, as he had been all his life. He struck at me treacherously with a knife. Look here!” He threw open his waistcoat, and she started back with horror. There was a terrible wound underneath the bandage which he removed. “It was a blow for a blow,” he said, gravely. “From my wound I shall in all likelihood die. Your brother’s knife touched my lung, and I am always in danger of internal bleeding. The blow I struck him, I struck with his knife at my heart. That is not murder.” “We shall see,” she muttered between her lips. “As soon as you will,” he answered. “There is one thing more which you may as well know. My unhappy meeting with your brother on that Sunday afternoon was not our first meeting since his return to England. On the very night of his arrival I met him in London by appointment. I warned him that if he persisted in a certain course I should forget my cloth, and remember only that I was a man and that he was an enemy. He listened in silence, and when I turned to leave he made a cowardly attempt upon my life. He deliberately attempted to murder me. Nothing but an accident saved my life. But I am not telling you these things to gain your pity. Only you have found me out, and you are his sister. It is right that you should know the truth. I have told you the whole story. Will you go now?” She looked at him, and for a moment she hesitated. Then her eyes met mine, and her face hardened. “Yes, I will go,” she declared. “I do not care whether you have told me the truth or not. I am going to let the world know who Canon Ffolliot is.” “You will do as seems best to you,” my father said, quietly. He had risen to his feet, and stood with his hand at his side, breathing heavily, in an attitude now familiar to me, although I had never fully understood its cause. His pale lips were twitching with pain, and there were dark rims under his eyes. She looked at him and laughed brutally.