t you to-night to put this matter plainly before
you. Unless you leave this island, and give up your pretensions to the
hand of the Signorina Cartuccio, you die. You have climbed for the last
time to the Villa Fiolesse. Swear to go there no more; swear to leave
this island before day breaks to-morrow, or your blood shall stain its
shores. By the unbroken and sacred oath of a Marioni, I swear it!"

To Lord St. Maurice, the Sicilian's words and gestures seemed only
grotesque. He looked at him a little contemptuously--a thin, shrunken-up
figure, ghastly pale, and seeming all the thinner on account of his
somber black attire. What a husband for Adrienne! How had he dared to
love so magnificent a creature. The very idea of such a man threatening
him seemed absurd to Lord St. Maurice, an athlete of public school and
college renown, with muscles like iron, and the stature of a guardsman.
He was not angry, and he had not a particle of fear, but his stock of
patience was getting exhausted.

"How are you going to do the killing?" he asked. "Pardon my ignorance,
but it is evidently one of the customs of the country which has not been
explained to me. How do you manage it?"

"I should kill you in a duel!" the Sicilian answered. "It would be
easily done."

The Englishman burst out laughing. It was too grotesque, almost like a
huge joke.

"Damn you and your duels!" he said, rising to his feet, and towering
over his companion. "Look here, Mr. di Marioni, I've listened to you
seriously because I felt heartily sorry for you; but I've had enough of
it. I don't know whether you understand the slang of my country. If you
do, you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that you've been
talking 'bally rot.' We may be a rough lot, we Englishmen, but we're not
cowards, and no one but a coward would dream of giving a girl up for
such a tissue of whimperings. Be a man, sir, and get over it, and look
here--none of this sort of business!"

He drew the dagger from his breast pocket, and patted it. The Sicilian
was speechless and livid with rage.

"You are a coward!" he hissed. "You shall fight with me!"

"That I won't," Lord St Maurice answered good-humoredly. "Just take my
advice. Make up your mind that we both can't have her, and she's chosen
me, and come and give me your hand like a man. Think it over, now,
before the morning. Good-night!"

The Sicilian sprang up, and looked rapidly around. At an adjoining table
he recognized two me