"The Earl of Ashby, my good lord, desires to speak with you," said stout Tom Blawket, addressing Hugh de Monthermer, as he sat at a table, writing.
"Admit him instantly," answered Hugh. "Is he alone?"
"Quite alone, my lord," replied the man, and retired.
The burst of anger to which Alured de Ashby had given way, when irritated by his cousin's presence, had passed off; and he now entered the chamber of Hugh de Monthermer, grave and sad, but with feelings of a high and noble kind. He turned his eye back, as he passed the door towards the ante-room, where a page and some yeomen were seated; and Hugh de Monthermer, divining the meaning of the glance, bade Blawket, as he ushered the Earl in, clear the outer chamber and let no one remain there.
The Earl advanced at once towards his adversary, and with a frank though grave air, held out his hand. Hugh took it and pressed it in his own, and seating themselves together, Alured de Ashby began upon the motive of his coming.
"Monthermer," he said, "I cannot meet you to-morrow in the field, as needs must be in consequence of my own rashness and the world's opinion, without saying a word or two to clear my conscience and relieve my heart. When I made the charge I did make, I was induced by artful men to believe you guilty. Since then, however, reason and thought, and some accidental discoveries, have made me doubt the fact.
"Doubt?" exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer, in a tone of reproach.
"Well, well," said Alured, "to believe that the charge is false. Will that satisfy you?"
"It must," replied Hugh de Monthermer. "Am I then to suppose, that it is the world's opinion, the fear of an idle scoff alone, which makes you draw your sword against a friend, which makes you still urge--but I will not use a term that can pain you--which makes you risk your life and mine, a sister's happiness, and your own repose of mind for ever, all for an idle scoff?"
"Even so, Monthermer, even so!" said Alured de Ashby, in a sad, but determined tone. "I know it all--all you could urge; but yet you and I are well matched in arms; both have some renown--yours, perhaps, higher than my own, from having fought in Palestine--and it is impossible that, after having called you to the field, I can in aught retract, without drawing down upon myself a charge of fear, which must never rest upon my name. Men would say I dared not meet you, and that must not be."