a man who was placidly pretending to misunderstand something that he
understood perfectly well.

"Your affection expresses itself in an abrupt form," he began, but
MacIan broke the brittle and frivolous speech to pieces with a violent
voice. "Do not trouble to talk like that," he said. "You know what I
mean as well as I know it. Come on and fight, I say. Perhaps you are
feeling just as I do."

Turnbull's face flinched again in the fierce sunlight, but his attitude
kept its contemptuous ease.

"Your Celtic mind really goes too fast for me," he said; "let me be
permitted in my heavy Lowland way to understand this new development. My
dear Mr. MacIan, what do you really mean?"

MacIan still kept the shining sword-point towards the other's breast.

"You know what I mean. You mean the same yourself. We must fight now or
else----"

"Or else?" repeated Turnbull, staring at him with an almost blinding
gravity.

"Or else we may not want to fight at all," answered Evan, and the end of
his speech was like a despairing cry.

Turnbull took out his own sword suddenly as if to engage; then planting
it point downwards for a moment, he said, "Before we begin, may I ask
you a question?"

MacIan bowed patiently, but with burning eyes.

"You said, just now," continued Turnbull, presently, "that if we did not
fight now, we might not want to fight at all. How would you feel about
the matter if we came not to want to fight at all?"

"I should feel," answered the other, "just as I should feel if you had
drawn your sword, and I had run away from it. I should feel that because
I had been weak, justice had not been done."

"Justice," answered Turnbull, with a thoughtful smile, "but we are
talking about your feelings. And what do you mean by justice, apart from
your feelings?"

MacIan made a gesture of weary recognition! "Oh, Nominalism," he said,
with a sort of sigh, "we had all that out in the twelfth century."

"I wish we could have it out now," replied the other, firmly. "Do you
really mean that if you came to think me right, you would be certainly
wrong?"

"If I had a blow on the back of my head, I might come to think you a
green elephant," answered MacIan, "but have I not the right to say now,
that if I thought that I should think wrong?"

"Then you are quite certain that it would be wrong to like me?" asked
Turnbull, with a slight smile.

"No," said Evan, thoughtfully, "I do not say that. It may not be the
devil, it ma