g aim, do you
not know?'

'I have been practising for a couple of hours to-day,' he said.

Compassion thrilled her. 'A couple of hours! Unhappy boy! But do you not
know that he is a dead shot? He is famous for his aim. He never misses.
He can do all the duellist's wonders both with sword and pistol, and
that is why he was respected when he refused the duel because he--before
these parents of mine drove him... and me! I think we are both mad--he
despised duelling. He! He! Alvan! who has challenged my father! I have
heard him speak of duelling as cowardly. But what is he? what has he
changed to? And it would be cowardly to kill you, Marko.'

'I take my chance,' Marko said.

'You have no chance. His aim is unerring.' She insisted on the
deadliness of his aim, and dwelt on it with a gloating delight that her
conscience approved, for she was persuading the youth to shun his fatal
aim.

If you stood against him he would not spare you--perhaps not; I fear
he would not, as far as I know him now. He can be terrible in wrath.
I think he would warn you; but two men face to face! and he suspecting
that you cross his path! Find some way of avoiding him. Do, I entreat
you. By your love of me! Oh! no blood. I do not want to lose you. I
could not bear it.'

'Would you regret me?' said he.

Her eyes fell on his, and the beauty of those great dark eyes made her
fondness for him legible. He caused her a spasm of anguish, foreknowing
him doomed. She thought that haply this devoted heart was predestined
to be the sacrifice which should bring her round to Alvan. She murmured
phrases of dissuasion until her hollow voice broke; she wept for being
speechless, and turned upon Providence and her parents, in railing at
whom a voice of no ominous empty sound was given her; and still she felt
more warmly than railing expressed, only her voice shrank back from a
tone of feeling. She consoled herself with the reflection that utterance
was inadequate. Besides, her active good sense echoed Marko ringingly
when he cited the usages of their world and the impossibility of
his withdrawing or wishing to withdraw from the line of a challenge
accepted. It was destiny. She bowed her head lower and lower, oppressed
without and within, unwilling to look at him. She did not look when he
left her.

The silence of him encouraged her head to rise. She stared about: his
phantom seemed present, and for a time she beheld him both upright in
life and stretched