He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
"I am saying," said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, "that it is your fault that I am like to get my throat cut before sunset." "My fault ?" she murmured.

The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim about her.

"My fault ?" "The fault of your wanton ways," he accused her harshly.

"You have so played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself killed by him to save the family honour." He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave him pause.

There fell a silence.