“What’s this?” quoth Oliver at last, hoarsely.
Lionel dropped his eyes, unable longer to meet a glance that was becoming terrible.
“He would have it,” he growled almost sullenly, answering the reproach that was written in every line of his brother’s taut body. “I had warned him not to cross my path. But to-night I think some madness had seized upon him. He affronted me, Noll; he said things which it was beyond human power to endure, and....” He shrugged to complete his sentence.
“Well, well,” said Oliver in a small voice. “First let us tend this wound of yours.”
“Do not call Nick,” was the other’s swift admonition. “Don’t you see, Noll?” he explained in answer to the inquiry of his brother’s stare, “don’t you see that we fought there almost in the dark and without witnesses. It....” he swallowed, “it will be called murder, fair fight though it was; and should it be discovered that it was I....” He shivered and his glance grew wild; his lips twitched.
“I see,” said Oliver, who understood at last, and he added bitterly: “You fool!”
“I had no choice,” protested Lionel. “He came at me with his drawn sword. Indeed, I think he was half-drunk. I warned him of what must happen to the other did either of us fall, but he bade me not concern myself with the fear of any such consequences to himself. He was full of foul words of me and you and all whoever bore our name. He struck me with the flat of his blade and threatened to run me through as I stood unless I drew to defend myself. What choice had I? I did not mean to kill him—as God’s my witness, I did not, Noll.”
Without a word Oliver turned to a side-table, where stood a metal basin and ewer. He poured water, then came in the same silence to treat his brother’s wound. The tale that Lionel told made blame impossible, at least from Oliver. He had but to recall the mood in which he himself had ridden after Peter Godolphin; he had but to remember, that only the consideration of Rosamund—only, indeed, the consideration of his future—had set a curb upon his own bloodthirsty humour.
When he had washed the wound he fetched some table linen from a press and ripped it into strips with his dagger; he threaded out one of these and made a preliminary crisscross of the threads across the lips of the wound—for the blade had gone right through the muscles of the breast, grazing the ribs; these threads would help the formation of a clot. Then with the infinite skill and cunning acquired in the course of his rovings he proceeded to the bandaging.
That done, he opened the window and flung out the blood-tinted water. The cloths with which he had mopped the wound and all other similar evidences of the treatment he cast upon the fire. He must remove all traces even from the eyes of Nicholas. He had the most implicit trust in the old servant’s fidelity. But the matter was too grave to permit of the slightest risk. He realized fully the justice of Lionel’s fears that however fair the fight might have been, a thing done thus in secret must be accounted murder by the law.