"It is Constans, of course; for who else among the House People would dare to cross the Gray Wolf's threshold. Do you not remember Ulick?"
The two young men shook hands heartily, albeit a certain constraint was immediately to fall upon them. For Constans could not be unmindful of his purpose, and Ulick was a true Doomsman, and hatred of the House-dweller was the first article in his hereditary creed. The inheritance of a naked sword lay between them. Was it not inevitable that one or the other of them should be moved to take it up?
It was Constans who realized that only frankness could save the situation, and as they walked along he told Ulick the full story of the enmity between him and Quinton Edge, then of the years of his apprenticeship to his Uncle Hugolin, and of the message in the bottle that had served to crystallize desire into action. The purport of the letter was still fresh in his mind, and he repeated it as nearly as he could word for word.
"Esmay, did you say?" interrupted Ulick. "It was Esmay who helped me trap you. Don't you remember her eyes, brown and with a flame in them like to the carbuncles in the bracelet that I gave her? Elena was her mother."
Constans assented, indifferently. In truth, he had entirely forgotten about the girl.
"Ten days ago she disappeared," said Ulick, gloomily, "and not a trace of her have I been able to discover. Yet I believe that your friend Quinton Edge could tell me if he would."
"I don't understand."
"Nor does anybody else. For all that, I am sure that he does not want her for himself; no woman has ever been able to boast that Master Quinton Edge looked at her twice. Were it otherwise I think I should go mad."
Constans shrugged his shoulders impatiently; then he looked up and saw the pain in the big fellow's face. It touched him, although he could not comprehend the weakness (for such it seemed to him), that had given it birth.
"If you could see her, you would understand," continued Ulick, as though divining his thought. Again they walked along in silence. Constans broke it abruptly: