“His blood—­his blood!”

The landlord started back with undisguised horror from his glance.  Though familiar with scenes of violence and crime, and callous in their performance, there was more of the Mammon than the Moloch in his spirit, and he shuddered at the fiendlike look that met his own.  The other proceeded:—­

“The trench in my cheek is nothing to that within my soul.  I tell you.  Munro, I hate the boy—­I hate him with a hatred that must have a tiger-draught from his veins, and even then I will not be satisfied.  But why talk I to you thus, when he is almost in my grasp; and there is neither let nor hinderance?  Sleeps he not in yon room to the northeast?”

“He does, Guy—­but it must not be!  I must not risk all for your passion, which seems to me, as weak as it is without adequate provocation.  I care nothing for the youth, and you know it; but I will not run the thousand risks which your temper is for ever bringing upon me.  There is nothing to be gained, and a great deal to be lost by it, at this time.  As for the scar—­that, I think, is fairly a part of the business, and is not properly a subject of personal revenge.  It belongs to the adventure, and you should not have engaged in it, without a due reference to its possible consequences.”

“You shall not keep me back by such objections as these.  Do I not know how little you care for the risk—­how little you can lose by it?”

“True, I can lose little, but I have other reasons; and, however it may surprise you, those reasons spring from a desire for your good rather than my own.”

“For my good?” replied the other, with an inquiring sneer.

“Yes, for your good, or rather for Lucy’s.  You wish to marry her.  She is a sweet child, and an orphan.  She merits a far better man than you; and, bound as I am to give her to you, I am deeply bound to myself and to her, to make you as worthy of her as possible, and to give her as many chances for happiness as I can.”

An incredulous smile played for a second upon the lips of the outlaw, succeeded quickly, however, by the savage expression, which, from being that most congenial to his feelings, had become that most habitual to his face.

“I can not be deceived by words like these,” was his reply, as he stepped quickly from under the boughs which had sheltered them and made toward the house.

“Think not to pursue this matter, Guy, on your life.  I will not permit it; not now, at least, if I have to strike for the youth myself.”

Thus spoke the landlord, as he advanced in the same direction.  Both were deeply roused, and, though not reckless alike, Munro was a man quite as decisive in character as his companion was ferocious and vindictive.  What might have been the result of their present position, had it not undergone a new interruption, might not well be foreseen.  The sash of one of the apartments of the building devoted to the family was suddenly thrown up, and a soft and plaintive voice, accompanying the wandering and broken strains of a guitar, rose sweetly into song upon the ear.