Assuredly when he had come to Unorna's house with the fixed determination to take her life, the last thing that he had expected had been to be taken prisoner and left to his own meditations.

It was clear that the Wanderer's warning had been conveyed without loss of time and had saved Unorna from her immediate fate.
Nevertheless, he did not regret having given her the opportunity of defending herself.

He had not meant that there should be any secret about the deed, for he was ready to sacrifice his own life in executing it.
Yet he was not altogether brave.

He had neither Unorna's innate indifference to physical danger, nor the Wanderer's calm superiority to fear.

He would not have made a good soldier, and he could not have faced another man's pistol at fifteen paces without experiencing a mental and bodily commotion not unlike terror, which he might or might not have concealed from others, but which would in any case have been painfully apparent to himself.
It is a noticeable fact in human nature that a man of even ordinary courage will at any time, when under excitement, risk his life rather than his happiness.