"Answer me--what did you mean? I can understand that in thought Anthony stood before you when you struck--once because I had cast you over, and had taken him--once because he touched and hurt your eye--but why the third time for Julian?" He lifted one shoulder after the other, squirming uneasily under her hands, and did not reply, save with a scoffing snort through his nostrils. "I know that you are waiting here for Anthony--and like yourself, waiting to deal a treacherous blow. It is not such as you who meet a foe face to face, after an open challenge, in a fair field." "An open challenge, in a fair field!" echoed Fox, recovering some of his audacity, after the first shock of alarm at discovery had passed away. "Would that be a fair field in which all the skill, all the strength is on one side? An open challenge! Did he challenge me when he struck me with the gloves in the face and hurt my eye? No--he never warned me, and why should I forewarn him?" "Come!" said Urith, "go on before--up to Willsworthy; I will not run the chance of being seen here talking with you, as if in secret. Go on--I follow." She waved him imperiously forth, and he obeyed as a whipped cur, sneaked through the broken doorway forth into the lane. He looked down the road to see if Anthony were ascending, but saw no one. Then he turned his head to observe Urith, hastily sheathed his knife, and trudged forward in the direction required. Urith said nothing till the hall was entered, when she pointed to a seat, and went with a candlestick into the kitchen to obtain a light. She returned directly, having shut the doors between, so that no servant could overhear what was said. The candlestick she placed on the table, and then planted herself opposite Fox Crymes. He was sitting with his back to the table, so that the light was off his face, and such as there was from a single candle fell on Urith; but he did not look up. His eyes were on the skirt of her dress and on her feet, and by them he could see that she was quivering with emotion. He seemed to see her through the flicker of hot air that rises from a kiln. He wiped his eyes, thinking that his sight was disturbed, but by a second look ascertained that the tremulous motion was in Urith. It was like the quiver of a butterfly's wings when fluttering at the window trying to escape. "I am ready," said Urith. "What did you mean when you said 'This for Julian?'" He half-lifted his cunning eyes, but let them fall again. He had recovered his assurance and decided on his course. "I suppose," sneered he, "that you will allow that I have a right to chastise the man who insults our good name, to bring my sister into the mouths of folk?" "Has he done so?"