Lora Lovelace trembled, as she listened to these speeches.
“Oh, Dorothy Dayrell!” said she, turning upon the latter an upbraiding look, “’Tis too serious for jesting. You do not mean it?”
“But I do mean it, Mistress Lovelace. I’m not jesting. Not a bit of it. I’m quite in earnest, I assure you.”
“Surely you would not wish to see blood spilled?”
“And why not? What care I, so long as it isn’t my own blood; or that of one of my friends. Ha! ha! ha! What are either of these fellows to you, or me? I know neither. If they’re angry with each other, let them fight it out. Foh-poh! They may kill one another, for aught I care.”
“Wicked woman!” thought Lora, without making rejoinder.
Marion Wade overheard the unfeeling utterances; but she was too much occupied with what was passing on the plain below, to give heed to them. That incipient suspicion, though still unsatisfied, was not troubling her now. It had given place to a feeling of apprehension, for the safety of him who had been its object.
“My God!” she murmured in soliloquy, her hands clasped over her bosom—the slender white fingers desperately entwining each other. “If he should be killed! Walter! dear Walter!” she cried, earnestly appealing to her brother, “Go down, and stop it! Tell him—tell them they must not fight. O father, you will not permit it?”
“Perhaps I may not be able to hinder them,” said Walter, springing out from among the circle of his acquaintances. “But I shall go down. You will not object, father? Mr Holtspur is alone, and may stand in need of a friend.”
“Go, my son!” said Sir Marmaduke, pleased at the spirit his son was displaying. “It matters not who, or what, he be. He is our guest, and has been your protector. If they are determined on fighting, see that he be shown fair play.”