t these fellows acquire!" said Calvert as he read the letter
and threw it from him. "What mock humility! what downright and palpable
pretension to superiority through every line of it! The sum of it all
being, I can't deny that you are cleverer, stronger, more active, and
more manly than me; but, somehow, I don't exactly see why or, how, but
I'm your better! Well, I'll write an answer to this one of these days,
and such an answer as I flatter myself he'll not read aloud to the
company who sit round the fire at the vicarage. And so, Mademoiselle
Florence, this was your anxiety, and this the reason for all that
interest about our quarrel which I was silly enough to ascribe to a
feeling for myself. How invariably it is so! How certain it is that a
woman, the weakest, the least experienced, the most commonplace, is more
than a match in astuteness for a man, in a question where her affections
are concerned. The feminine nature has strange contradictions. They can
summon the courage of a tigress to defend their young, and the spirit
of a Machiavelli to protect a lover. She must have had some misgiving,
however, that, to prefer a fellow like this to me would be felt by me as
an outrage. And then the cunning stroke of implying that her sister was
not indisposed to listen to me. The perfidy of that!"

Several days after Loyd's departure, Calvert was lounging near the lake,
when he jumped up, exclaiming, "Here comes the postman! I see he makes
a sign to me. What can this be about? Surely, my attached friend has not
written to me again. No, this is a hand that I do not recognise. Let us
see what it contains." He opened and read as follows:

"Sir,--I have received your letter. None but a scoundrel
could have written it! As all prospect of connexion with
your family is now over, you cannot have a pretext for not
affording me such a satisfaction as, had you been a
gentleman in feeling as you are in station, it would never
have been necessary for me to demand from you. I leave this,
to-morrow, for the continent, and will be at Basle by Monday
next. I will remain there for a week at your orders, and
hope that there may be no difficulty to their speedy
fulfilment.

"I am, your obedient and faithful servant,

"Wentworth Gordon GRAHAM."

"The style is better than yours, Master Loyd, just because it means
something. The man is in an honest passion and wants a fight The othe