He was for leaving them with that, but Flavia put herself between him and the door. She fixed her eyes on his face. "What are you going to do?" she asked in a low voice.
"I will tell you all—later," he replied gently.
"No, now!" she retorted, controlling herself with difficulty. "Now! You are not going—to fight him?"
"I am not going to fight," he answered slowly.
But her heart was not so easily deceived as her ear. "There is something under your words," she said jealously. "What is it?"
"I am not going to fight," he replied gravely, "but to punish. There is a limit." Even while he spoke she remembered in what circumstances those words had been used. "There is a limit," he repeated solemnly. "He has the blood of four on his head, and another lies at death's door. And he is not satisfied. He is not satisfied! Once I warned him. To-day the time for warning is past, the hour for judgment is come. God forgive me if I err, for vengeance is His and it is terrible to be His hand." He turned to Phelim, and, in the same stern tone, "my sword is broken," he said. "Fetch me the man's sword who lies upstairs."
Phelim went, awe-stricken, and marvelling. Morty remained, marvelling also. And Flavia—but, as she tried to speak, Payton's shadow once more came into sight at the entrance-gates and went slowly by, and she clapped her hand to her mouth that she might not scream. Colonel Sullivan saw the action, understood, and touched her softly on the shoulder. "Pray," he said, "pray!"
"For you!" she cried in a voice that, to those who had ears, betrayed her heart. "Ah, I will pray!"
"No, for him," he replied. "For him now. For me when I return."
She dropped on her knees before a chair, and, shuddering, hid her face in her hands. And almost at once she knew that they were gone, and that she was alone in the room.