Peter, finding the farmer and his wife at breakfast, told them he was leaving, and asked that his luggage should be taken to the station. The station was two miles from the house, and Peter started to walk. He had turned into the drive, and was passing the last of the farm buildings, when he ran upon two figures vehemently talking. Their voices troubled his miserable brooding; but he was hardly yet aware of their presence before his way was barred. He looked up from the ground and was confronted with a man visibly blazing with anger.

He looked aside for an explanation, and saw that the man had been talking with the farmer\'s granddaughter. She was watching them with expressionless eyes, but with a cold satisfaction hiding in the line of her mouth.

"What does this mean?" said Peter, making an attempt to pass.

He looked swiftly from one to the other, recognising his opponent as the man he had seen talking from his horse in the yard yesterday.

The man struck at Peter with his whip.

Peter caught the blow on his arm, and flung out his fists.

"What\'s your quarrel with me?" asked Peter.

"Well you know it," said the man.

[Pg 172]

Peter turned to the farmer\'s granddaughter. She smiled at him, and he understood. He was filled with a desolating sense of the futility of resisting the event.

"I\'ve no quarrel with you," he drearily protested to the man, "why do you force it?"

"It\'s late to talk of forcing."

"Forcing? I don\'t understand."

Again Peter turned to the woman. Her metallic outfacing of his question flashed the truth at him.

"He knows that you have insulted me."

The words came from her on a low malicious note.

"Are you going to fight?" the man blazed at him, flinging his weapon to the ground. "Or are you going to take that?" He pointed to the whip lying between them.

Peter flung off his coat. Standing in the sun, he felt weak and vague. He swayed a little. He felt he must get away from the intolerable heat. He looked into the shed beside them, and the man nodded.

They went in and faced each other upon a dusty floor of uneven stone. The girl sat on Peter\'s coat, indecently fascinated. The man looked grimly at Peter\'s strong arms and professional attitude. But Peter was faint and sick. He saw his fists before him as though they belonged to another—white and blurred. Dreamily he realised that a blow had started upon him out of the[Pg 173] grey air. He met it with an instinctive guard; but he weakly smiled to feel something heavy and strong break through his arm like paper. Then everything was blotted out.

In a moment the man was kneeling beside him, astonished at the strange collapse of his opponent. Peter had gone down like a sack, striking his head on the stone floor. The man had hardly touched him. Indeed, he had himself nearly fallen with the impetus of a blow which had fallen upon the air.

He felt Peter\'s pulse and forehead, awed by his stillness and the stare of his eyes. The girl was now beside him.

"Quick," she said. "Run to the house. We must get him to bed."

The man looked at her, hard and stern.

"You\'re a bit too anxious," he said.

"Can\'t you see? The boy\'s dying."

He looked implacably into her eyes.

"Let the blackguard lie."

"Fool!"

She almost spat at him, with a gesture of impatient agony for Peter on the floor.

"You\'ve been lying to me," suddenly said the man.

She did not answer, but............