"The Earl of Ashby, my good lord, desires to speak with you," said stout Tom Blawket, addressing Hugh de Monthermer, as he sat at a table, writing.

"Admit him instantly," answered Hugh. "Is he alone?"

"Quite alone, my lord," replied the man, and retired.

The burst of anger to which Alured de Ashby had given way, when irritated by his cousin\'s presence, had passed off; and he now entered the chamber of Hugh de Monthermer, grave and sad, but with feelings of a high and noble kind. He turned his eye back, as he passed the door towards the ante-room, where a page and some yeomen were seated; and Hugh de Monthermer, divining the meaning of the glance, bade Blawket, as he ushered the Earl in, clear the outer chamber and let no one remain there.

The Earl advanced at once towards his adversary, and with a frank though grave air, held out his hand. Hugh took it and pressed it in his own, and seating themselves together, Alured de Ashby began upon the motive of his coming.

"Monthermer," he said, "I cannot meet you to-morrow in the field, as needs must be in consequence of my own rashness and the world\'s opinion, without saying a word or two to clear my conscience and relieve my heart. When I made the charge I did make, I was induced by artful men to believe you guilty. Since then, however, reason and thought, and some accidental discoveries, have made me doubt the fact.

"Doubt?" exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer, in a tone of reproach.

"Well, well," said Alured, "to believe that the charge is false. Will that satisfy you?"

"It must," replied Hugh de Monthermer. "Am I then to suppose, that it is the world\'s opinion, the fear of an idle scoff alone, which makes you draw your sword against a friend, which makes you still urge--but I will not use a term that can pain you--which makes you risk your life and mine, a sister\'s happiness, and your own repose of mind for ever, all for an idle scoff?"

"Even so, Monthermer, even so!" said Alured de Ashby, in a sad, but determined tone. "I know it all--all you could urge; but yet you and I are well matched in arms; both have some renown--yours, perhaps, higher than my own, from having fought in Palestine--and it is impossible that, after having called you to the field, I can in aught retract, without drawing down upon myself a charge of fear, which must never rest upon my name. Men would say I dared not meet you, and that must not be."

Hugh rose from his seat, and walked twice across the room, then shook his head with a grieved and sorrowful expression, replying, "Ashby, you are wrong; but I, on my part, must say no word to shake your resolution. As you judge best, so must you act, but I go to the field with a heart free from wrong; sad, bitterly sad, that I am forced to draw the sword against a man whom I would fain take to my heart with love;--sad, bitterly sad, that whether I live or die, a charge I have not merited brings sorrow upon me. But, as I have said, I will urge no motive upon you to change your purpose; only hear me, Alured, when I call God and all the holy saints to witness, that the thought of injuring your father by word or deed never could cross my mind--that I am, in short, as guiltless of his death as the babe unborn!"

"I believe you--I do believe you, indeed," said the young Earl.

"Well, then," replied Hugh, "I have a charge to give you, Alured. None can tell what the result of such a day as to-morrow may be. I go with my heart bent down with care and sorrow; your sister\'s love blunts my lance and rusts my sword--hatred of the task put upon me hangs heavy on my arm--and \'tis possible that, though mine be the righteous cause, yours the bad one, I may fall, and you may conquer. If so, there is a debt of justice which you owe me, and I charge you execute it--ay, as an act of penitence. Proclaim with your own voice the innocence of the man you have slain, seek every proof to show he was not guilty, and bring the murderers to the block--even should you find them in your own house."

The Earl covered his eyes with his hands, and remained silent for a moment, but then looked up again, saying, "No, no; \'tis I that shall fall. The penalty of my own rashness at first, the penalty of my own weakness now--for it is a weakness--will be paid by myself, Monthermer. I feel that my days are at an end; my death under your lance will clear you of the charge that I have brought against you, and yours will be the task to seek and punish the assassins of my father."

"And your sister?" said Hugh de Monthermer.

"I have seen her," replied her brother. "I have seen her, and told her my wishes and my will. Of that no more; only remember, Monthermer, that when to-morrow I call God to witness that my cause is just, the cause I mean is not my charge against you, but the defence of my own honour against the injurious suspicions of the world."

Hugh looked at him with a rueful smile. "Alas, Alured!" ............