“Later, I saw that you had.  Perhaps then I did not wonder.  In September—­almost a year from that Christmas Eve—­I yet did not know.  Then, in Edinburgh, I came upon Mr. Wotherspoon.  He told me....  I had no wicked intent toward Elspeth Barrow—­none according to my canon, which has been that of the natural man.  We met by accident.  We loved at once and deeply.  She had in her an elf queen!  But at last the human must have darkened and beset her.  Had I known of those fears, those dangers, I might have turned homeward from France and every shining scheme....”

“Ah no, you would not—­”

“...  If I would not, then certainly I should have written to Jarvis Barrow and to others, acknowledging my part—­”

“Perhaps you would have done that.  Perhaps not.  You might have found reasons of obligation for not doing so.  ‘Loved deeply’!  You never loved her deeply!  You have loved nothing deeply save yourself!”

“Perhaps.  Yet I think,” said Ian, “that I would have done as much as that.  But Alexander Jardine, of course, would not have taken one erring step!”

“Have you done now?”

“Yes.”

Glenfernie rose to his feet.  He stood against the gulf of air and his great frame seemed enlarged, like the figure of the Brocken.  He was like his father, the old laird, but there glowed an extremer dark anger and power.  The old laird had made himself the dream-avenger of injuries adopted, not felt at first hand.  The present laird knew the wounding, the searing.  “All his life my father dreamed of grappling with Grierson of Lagg.  My Grierson of Lagg stands before me in the guise of a false friend and lover!...  What do I care for your weighing to a scruple how much the heap of wrong falls short of the uttermost?  The dire wrong is there, to me the direst!  Had I deep affection for you once?  Now you speak to me of every treacherous morass, every ignis fatuus, past and present!  The traveler through life does right to drain the bogs as they arise—­put it out of their power to suck down man, woman, and child!  It is not his cause alone.  It is the general cause.  If there be a God, He approves.  Draw your sword and let us fight!”

They fought.  The platform of rock was smooth enough for good footing.  They had no seconds, unless the shadows upon the hills and the mountain eagles answered for such.  Ian was the highly trained fencer, adept of the sword.  Glenfernie’s knowledge was lesser, more casual.  But he had his bleak wrath, a passion that did not blind nor overheat, but burned white, that set him, as it were, in a tingling, crackling arctic air, where the shadows were sharp-edged, the nerves braced and the will steel-tipped.  They fought with determination and long—­Ian now to save his own life, Alexander for Revenge, whose man he had become.  The clash of blade against blade, the shifting of foot upon the rock floor, made the dominant sound upon the mountain-side.  The birds stayed silent in the birch-trees.  Self-service, pride, anger, jealousy, hatred—­the inner vibrations were heavy.