"Ha! ha!" laughed the other, with a violent affectation of derision.
"Don't be frightened, gentlemen! Mr. Holmes and myself have wrestled upon another battle-field, and I can afford to forgive him, from the soreness of his defeat. Your friend and instructress, that loud-tongued virago, Ida Ross, could not have uttered—"
Like a wounded panther, Lynn cleared the table at a bound, and grasped his throat. A general rush was made to the spot, and they were parted before either sustained serious injury. Pemberton had drawn a dirk at the attack, but it was wrested from him by Mr. Lacy. Reconciliation was impossible in the excited state of the combatants. Charley prudently withdrew his friend, relying upon time and reflection to prepare the mind of each for overtures and concessions. Lynn did not speak until they reached his room; then, extricating his arm from Charley's hold, he demanded in a high tone, what had been his object in terminating the conflict. "If not finished there, you know it must be somewhere."
"I do not see the necessity," was the reply. "It is a drunken broil, of which you will be ashamed to-morrow. No man in his senses would have noticed him as you did. He shall have a cow-hiding for his last speech; I would not disgrace a more honorable weapon by using it against him. I am mortified, Lynn—I hoped you were learning to control those childish fits of passion."
"Am I to be crossed and bullied forever by a meddling fool? Is it not enough that he has helped to wreck my peace, but he must taunt me with it?" cried Lynn passionately. "He ought not to live, and I do not care to!"
"You certainly are not fit to die." said Charley composedly, "or you would not rave so like a madman. Be sane for five minutes; by what means has your happiness been put in his power?"
Lynn was a humored, wayward child, and this cold severity did more to quiet him than an hour's rhetorical pleading. Charley listened with knitting brows, to a rehearsal of his story to Ida, and an account of that day's interview with Ellen. She was dressed for a ride with Mr. Pemberton, and exasperated by this new example of her disrespect to him in encouraging a man he despised—Lynn had spoke hastily—angrily. She retorted with equal warmth, and after a turbulent scene they parted. Pemberton arrived as he was leaving, and his malicious twinkle told that he comprehended and enjoyed the state of affairs. Like Ida, Charley had never heartily approved of this match; but his indignation towards Ellen was none the less on this account. He saw, in her behaviour, the most culpable flirting, and he said so to Lynn. He shook his head sadly.
"Convince me of that and you destroy my faith in woman. No! I believe she once fancied she loved me; but I have become obnoxious to her. It is my fate. The last dream of hope is over—I have nothing to live for now."
He covered his face with his hands. Charley remained with him all night, an uninvited visitor. His host neglected him entirely, never speaking, and seemingly unmindful of his presence. Whenever Charley awoke, he heard him pacing the floor, or saw the outline of his figure, dark and still, at the window, gazing into the black night.