Griselda slept on, and it was in the chill of the early morning before the dawn that she awoke.
She started up, and at first could not remember what had happened. It was quite dark, and she sprang from the bed, and, groping for the tinder-box, struck a spark, and lighted a candle.
She was still scarcely awake, and it was only by slow degrees that she recalled how the evening before she had waited, and waited in vain, for a letter—his letter! an answer to hers—in which in a few words she had told him of her father, and asked him to release her from her promise if so he pleased. Then she had asked if his silence since the letter she had written two days before, meant that he desired her to think no more of him. Only to know, and not to be kept in uncertainty, she craved for a reply—she begged for it—by the hand of Brian Bellis, who had brought this, her last appeal.
"No answer, no answer!" she exclaimed; "and hark! that is the clock striking—three—four. No answer—it is all over!" And as the words escaped her lips she saw lying on the floor a letter, which had fallen from the bed when she had sprung from it.
She picked it up, and became quiet and like herself at once. She saw by the address it was from Leslie Travers, for in the corner was written: "By the hand of Brian Bellis."
The tall candle cast its light on the sheet of Bath post, which had been carefully sealed, and threw a halo round the young head which bent over it.
"I have received no message from you"—so the letter began—"but, dearest love, sweetheart, could you dream that any circumstance could alter my love for you? Nay, Griselda, I will not permit such a possibility to enter my head, or wake a sorrowful echo in my heart.
"My only love, I am yours till death—and death may be near! I go to-morrow to meet the man on Claverton Down who has first persecuted you with his suit, and then, rejected, has vilely slandered you. I gave him the lie, and he has challenged me to fight, and as a man of honour I cannot draw back. If I live—I live for you; if I die—I die for you. I would there were any other way whereby I could vindicate your honour and my own. I am no coward, nor do I fear death; but I think these duels are a remnant of barbarism, meet for the old Romans, perchance, over whose buried city we move day by day, but unworthy of men who call themselves by the name of Christ.
"My love, when you read this letter, be not too much dismayed.
"When the dawn breaks over the city, we shall have met—that base man and I—and it may be that I shall fall under his more practised hand. If it is so, I commend you, in a letter, to my poor mother. You will weep together, and you shall have a home with her, and you will be united in sorrow. The child—your sister—shall be her care, as she would have been mine.
"I have made my last will and testament—duly attested; and in that you are mentioned as if you had been my wife.
"And so I say farewell, my only love.
"L. T."
A strange calm seemed to have come over Griselda as she read these words.
The restlessness and feverish anxiety of the preceding days were gone. In their place was the firm resolve—immediately taken—to stop this duel with her own hand. That resolution once taken, she did not falter. But Claverton Down!—how should she reach it? There was no time to lose. The dawn broke between seven and eight—it was now four o'clock and past.
The Bible lay open on the table, and her eye fell upon the words: "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings like eagles; they shall walk and not be weary; they shall run and not faint." I do not think that Griselda had ever known up to this moment what it was to wait on the Lord. Perhaps faithful Graves's words had struck deeper than she knew!