Fulmer lost all command over himself; and drawing his sword at once, though close before the castle windows, he exclaimed, "Draw! I will bear no more."
But Chartley was comparatively cool, while his adversary was blind with passion; and, springing upon him with a bound, he put aside the raised point with his hand, and wrenched the sword from his grasp, receiving a slight wound in doing so. Then, holding his adversary in a firm grasp, he cast the weapon from him over the castle wall.
"For shame," he said, after a moment's pause, "for shame, Lord Fulmer Go back, sir, to the castle; and, if you have those honourable feelings, those somewhat fantastic and imaginative notions, which I have heard attributed to you, think over your own conduct this morning--ay, think over the doubts and suspicions, unjust, and base, and false as they are, in which such conduct has arisen, and feel shame for both. I am not apt to be a vain man; but when I scan my own behaviour in the events which have given rise to all this rancour on your part, and compare it with your conduct now, I feel there is an immeasurable distance between us; and I regret, for that sweet lady's sake, that she is bound by such ties to such a man."
"You have the advantage, my lord, you have the advantage," repeated Fulmer, doggedly. "The time may come when it will be on my part."
"I think not," answered Chartley, with one of his light laughs; "for we are told God defends the right, and I will never do you wrong."
Thus saying, he turned upon his heel, descended the steps, and walked back into the castle.
Fulmer followed with a slow and sullen step, his eyes bent down upon the ground, and his lips, from time to time, moving. He felt all that had occurred the more bitterly, as he was conscious that it was his own fault. He might feel angry with Chartley; his pride might be bitterly mortified; he might have every inclination to cast the blame upon others; but there was one fact he could not get over, one truth, which, at the very first, carried self-censure home. He had violated all his own resolutions; he had given way to passion, when he had resolved to be calm and cool; and this conviction, perhaps, led him some steps on the path of regret for his whole conduct. At all events, passing through his ante-room without speaking to any of his servants, he entered his own chamber, and cast himself down upon a seat, to scrutinize the acts he had committed.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Let us return to the close of supper on the preceding night. The abbess and her two fair nieces, with some other ladies who had been congregated in the castle, retired, first, to a little hall, above that where they had supped, and then, after a short conversation, separated into various parties, and sought the chambers where they were to take repose. Iola, Constance, and their aunt, retired to the bed-room of the former, before they parted for the night, and sat and talked for a few minutes in a calm tone.
"My dear child, you look sad," said the abbess; "has any thing vexed you?"