“Good-night!” he said, softly.  “Good-night, my angel Innocent!  Good-night, my little love!”

She made no response and moved slowly backward into the room.  But as he reluctantly left his point of vantage and began to descend, stepping lightly from branch to branch of the accommodating wistaria, he saw the shadowy outline of her figure once more as she stretched out a hand and closed the lattice window, drawing a curtain across it.  With the drawing of that curtain the beauty of the summer night was over for him, and poising himself lightly on a tough stem which was twisted strongly enough to give him adequate support and which projected some four feet above the smooth grass below, he sprang down.  Scarcely had he touched the ground when a man, leaping suddenly out of a thick clump of bushes near that side of the house, caught him in a savage grip and shook him with all the fury of an enraged mastiff shaking a rat.  Taken thus unawares, and rendered almost breathless by the swiftness of the attack, Clifford struggled in the grasp of his assailant and fought with him desperately for a moment without any idea of his identity,—­then as by a dexterous twist of body he managed to partially extricate himself, he looked up and saw the face of Ned Landon, livid and convulsed with passion.

“Landon!” he gasped—­“What’s the matter with you?  Are you mad?”

“Yes!” answered Landon, hoarsely—­“And enough to make me so!  You devil!  You’ve ruined the girl!”

With a rapid movement, unexpected by his antagonist, Clifford disengaged himself and stood free.

“You lie!” he said—­“And you shall pay for it!  Come away from the house and fight like a man!  Come into the grass meadow yonder, where no one can see or hear us.  Come!”

Landon paused, drawing his breath thickly, and looking like a snarling beast baulked of its prey.

“That’s a trick!” he said, scornfully—­“You’ll run away!”

“Come!” repeated Clifford, vehemently—­“You’re more likely to run away than I am!  Come!”

Landon glanced him over from head to foot—­the moonbeams fell brightly on his athletic figure and handsome face—­then turned on his heel.

“No, I won’t!” he said, curtly—­“I’ve done all I want to do for to-night.  I’ve shaken you like the puppy you are!  To-morrow we’ll settle our differences.”

For all answer Clifford sprang at him and struck him smartly across the face.  In another moment both men were engaged in a fierce tussle, none the less deadly because so silent.  A practised boxer and wrestler, Clifford grappled more and more closely with the bigger but clumsier man, dragging him steadily inch by inch further away from the house as they fought.  More desperate, more determined became the struggle, till by two or three adroit manoeuvres Clifford got his opponent under him and bore him gradually to the ground, where, kneeling on his chest, he pinned him down.