d.
It rolled over as dead as stone, and Faulkner walked to pick it up. He
put back my pistols in the box, and we turned to seek the horses....

Then Grey came up to me. His mouth was hard-set, but the lines were not
of pride. I saw that he too had been desperately afraid, and I rejoiced
that others beside me had been at breaking-point.

"Our quarrel is at an end, sir?" he said, and his voice was hesitating.

"Why, yes," I said. "It was never my seeking, though I gave the
offence."

"I have behaved like a cub, sir," and he spoke loud, so that all could
hear. "You have taught me a lesson in gentility. Will you give me your
hand?"

I could find no words, and dumbly held out my right hand.

"Nay, sir," he said, "the other, the one that held the trigger. I count
it a privilege to hold the hand of a brave man."

I had been tried too hard, and was all but proving my bravery by
weeping like a bairn.

CHAPTER XIV.

A WILD WAGER.

That July morning in the forest gave me, if not popularity, at any rate
peace. I had made good my position. Henceforth the word went out that I
was to be let alone. Some of the young men, indeed, showed signs of
affecting my society, including that Mr. Kent of Gracedieu who had been
stripped by Ringan. The others treated me with courtesy, and I replied
with my best manners. Most of them were of a different world to mine,
and we could not mix, so 'twas right that our deportment should be that
of two dissimilar but amiable nations bowing to each other across a
frontier.

All this was a great ease, but it brought one rueful consequence.
Elspeth grew cold to me. Women, I suppose, have to condescend, and
protect, and pity. When I was an outcast she was ready to shelter me;
but now that I was in some degree of favour with others the need for
this was gone, and she saw me without illusion in all my angularity and
roughness. She must have heard of the duel, and jumped to the
conclusion that the quarrel had been about herself, which was not the
truth. The notion irked her pride, that her name should ever be brought
into the brawls of men. When I passed her in the streets she greeted me
coldly, and all friendliness had gone out of her eyes.

* * * * *

My days were so busy that I had little leisure for brooding, but at odd
moments I would fall into a deep melancholy. She had lived so
constantly in my thoughts that without her no project charmed me. What
matte