your hands--you--who might to-day be Cain!'

He gasped. 'Good Lord!' he said unaffectedly. And then, 'Why, you are
the girl who yesterday would have me kill him!' he cried with
indignation; 'who came out of town to meet me, brought me in, and would
have matched me with him as coolly as ever sportsman set cock in pit!
Ay, you! And now you blame me! My girl, blame yourself! Call yourself
Cain, if you please!'

'I do,' she said unblenching. 'But I have my excuse. God forgive me none
the less!' Her eyes filled as she said it. 'I had and have my excuse.
But you--a gentleman! What part had you in this? Who were you to kill
your fellow-creature--at the word of a distraught girl?'

Sir George saw his opening and jumped for it viciously. 'I fear you
honour me too much,' he said, in the tone of elaborate politeness, which
was most likely to embarrass a woman in her position. 'Most certainly
you do, if you are really under the impression that I fought Mr.
Dunborough on your account, my girl!'

'Did you not?' she stammered; and the new-born doubt in her eyes
betrayed her trouble.

'Mr. Dunborough struck me, because I would not let him fire on the
crowd,' Sir George explained, blandly raising his quizzing glass, but
not using it. 'That was why I fought him. And that is my excuse. You
see, my dear,' he continued familiarly, 'we have each an excuse. But I
am not a hypocrite.'

'Why do you call me that?' she exclaimed; distress and shame at the
mistake she had made contending with her anger.

'Because, my pretty Methodist,' he answered coolly, 'your hate and your
love are too near neighbours. Cursing and nursing, killing and billing,
come not so nigh one another in my vocabulary. But with women--some
women--it is different.'

Her cheeks burned with shame, but her eyes flashed passion. 'If I were a
lady,' she cried, her voice low but intense, 'you would not dare to
insult me.'

'If you were a lady,' he retorted with easy insolence, 'I would kiss you
and make you my wife, my dear. In the meantime, and as you are not--give
up nursing young sparks and go home to your mother. Don't roam the roads
at night, and avoid travelling-chariots as you would the devil. Or the
next knight-errant you light upon may prove something ruder
than--Captain Berkeley!'

'You are not Captain Berkeley?'

'No.'

She stared at him, breathing hard. Then, 'I was a fool, and I pay for it
in insult,' she said.

'Be a fool no longer then,' he retorte