The musician had retired.
"They say, Guy, that music can quiet the most violent spirit, and it seems to have had its influence upon you.

Does she not sing like a mocking-bird ?--is she not a sweet, a true creature?
Why, man! so forward and furious but now, and now so lifeless! bestir ye! The night wanes." The person addressed started from his stupor, and, as if utterly unconscious of what had been going on, _ad interim_, actually replied to the speech of his companion made a little while prior to the appearance and music of the young girl, whose presence at that moment had most probably prevented strife and, possibly, bloodshed.

He spoke as if the interruption had made only a momentary break in the sentence which he now concluded:-- "He lies at the point of my knife, under my hands, within my power, without chance of escape, and I am to be held back--kept from striking--kept from my revenge--and for what?
There may be little gain in the matter--it may not bring money, and there may be some risk! If it be with you, Munro, to have neither love nor hate, but what you do, to do only for the profit and spoil that come of it, it is not so with me.
I can both love and hate; though it be, as it has been, that I entertain the one feeling in vain, and am restrained from the enjoyment of the other." "You were born in a perverse time, and are querulous, for the sake of the noise it makes," rejoined his cool companion.

"I do not desire to restrain your hands from this young man, but take your time for it.

Let nothing be done to him while in this house.