th may be near! I
go to-morrow to meet the man on Claverton Down who has first
persecuted you with his suit, and then, rejected, has vilely
slandered you. I gave him the lie, and he has challenged me to
fight, and as a man of honour I cannot draw back. If I live--I
live for you; if I die--I die for you. I would there were any
other way whereby I could vindicate your honour and my own. I
am no coward, nor do I fear death; but I think these duels are
a remnant of barbarism, meet for the old Romans, perchance,
over whose buried city we move day by day, but unworthy of men
who call themselves by the name of Christ.

"My love, when you read this letter, be not too much dismayed.

"When the dawn breaks over the city, we shall have met--that
base man and I--and it may be that I shall fall under his more
practised hand. If it is so, I commend you, in a letter, to my
poor mother. You will weep together, and you shall have a home
with her, and you will be united in sorrow. The child--your
sister--shall be her care, as she would have been mine.

"I have made my last will and testament--duly attested; and in
that you are mentioned as if you had been my wife.

"And so I say farewell, my only love.

"L. T."

A strange calm seemed to have come over Griselda as she read these
words.

The restlessness and feverish anxiety of the preceding days were gone.
In their place was the firm resolve--immediately taken--to stop this duel
with her own hand. That resolution once taken, she did not falter. But
Claverton Down!--how should she reach it? There was no time to lose. The
dawn broke between seven and eight--it was now four o'clock and past.

The Bible lay open on the table, and her eye fell upon the words: "They
that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on
wings like eagles; they shall walk and not be weary; they shall run and
not faint." I do not think that Griselda had ever known up to this
moment what it was to wait on the Lord. Perhaps faithful Graves's words
had struck deeper than she knew!

"I want strength now," she said. "Give it to me, Lord! Direct me--help
me--for I must go on this quest alone."

Then she made ready for her departure, wrapping herself in the long
cloak she had worn when she went to her father's dying bed, and covering
her face with a thick veil under her hood.

The few