"I fear——" she began.
"Yes, go!" Asgill replied, almost roughly. "He is coming, and he must not find us together."
She fled swiftly, but the garden gate had barely closed on her skirts before Payton issued from the courtyard. The Englishman paused an instant in the gateway, his sword under his arm and a handkerchief in his hand. Thence he looked up and down the road with an air of scornful confidence that provoked Asgill beyond measure. The sun did not seem bright enough for him, nor the air scented to his liking. Finally he approached the Irishman, who, affecting to be engaged with his own thoughts, had kept his distance.
"Is he ready?" he asked, with a sneer.
With an effort Asgill controlled himself. "He is not," he said.
"At his prayers, is he? Well, he'll need them."
"He is not, to my knowledge," Asgill replied. "But he is ill."
Payton's face lightened with a joy not pleasant to see. "A coward!" he said coolly. "I am not surprised! Ill is he? Ay, I know that illness. It's not the first time I've met it."
Asgill had no wish to precipitate a quarrel. On the contrary, he had made up his mind to gain time if he could; at any rate, to put off the ultima ratio until evening, or until the next morning. Only in the last resort had he determined to fling off the mask. But at that word "coward," though he knew it to be well deserved, his temper, sapped by the knowledge that love was forcing him into a position which reason repudiated, gave way, and he spoke his true thoughts.
"What a d—d bully you are, Payton!" he said, in his slowest tone. "Sure, and you insult the man's sister in your drink——"