t Our Lady, you were in that act
a wicked man doing a wicked thing. If I hate you it is because you have
hated goodness. And if I like you...it is because you are good."

Turnbull's face wore an indecipherable expression.

"Well, shall we fight now?" he said.

"Yes," said MacIan, with a sudden contraction of his black brows, "yes,
it must be now."

The bright swords crossed, and the first touch of them, travelling
down blade and arm, told each combatant that the heart of the other was
awakened. It was not in that way that the swords rang together when they
had rushed on each other in the little garden behind the dealer's shop.

There was a pause, and then MacIan made a movement as if to thrust,
and almost at the same moment Turnbull suddenly and calmly dropped his
sword. Evan stared round in an unusual bewilderment, and then realized
that a large man in pale clothes and a Panama hat was strolling serenely
towards them.

V. THE PEACEMAKER

When the combatants, with crossed swords, became suddenly conscious of
a third party, they each made the same movement. It was as quick as
the snap of a pistol, and they altered it instantaneously and recovered
their original pose, but they had both made it, they had both seen it,
and they both knew what it was. It was not a movement of anger at being
interrupted. Say or think what they would, it was a movement of relief.
A force within them, and yet quite beyond them, seemed slowly and
pitilessly washing away the adamant of their oath. As mistaken lovers
might watch the inevitable sunset of first love, these men watched the
sunset of their first hatred.

Their hearts were growing weaker and weaker against each other. When
their weapons rang and riposted in the little London garden, they
could have been very certain that if a third party had interrupted them
something at least would have happened. They would have killed each
other or they would have killed him. But now nothing could undo or
deny that flash of fact, that for a second they had been glad to be
interrupted. Some new and strange thing was rising higher and higher in
their hearts like a high sea at night. It was something that seemed all
the more merciless, because it might turn out an enormous mercy. Was
there, perhaps, some such fatalism in friendship as all lovers talk
about in love? Did God make men love each other against their will?

"I'm sure you'll excuse my speaking to you," said the stranger, in a