Fox soon recovered himself, and seeing Anthony moving and rising on one hand, he came up to him again and thrust him back, and once more stooping over him, raised the knife.

"One for Urith," he said, "one for myself, and then one for Julian."

Before he could strike he was caught by the neck and dragged away.

Luke Cleverdon was in the hall; he had entered unobserved. Fox stood leaning against the table, hiding his weapon behind him, looking at Luke with angry yet alarmed eyes.

"Go," said Luke, waving his left hand. "I have not the strength to detain you, nor are there sufficient here to assist me were I to summon aid. Go!"

Fox, still watching him, sidled to the door, holding his knife behind him, but with a sharp, quick look at Anthony, who was disengaging himself from the burden of Urith, lying unconscious across him, and raising himself from where he had fallen. Blood flowed from his bosom and stained his vest.

"It was she. She bade me!" said Fox, pointing towards Urith. Then he passed through the door into the porch, and forth into the night.

Luke bent over Urith, who remained unconscious, and raised her to enable Anthony to mount to his feet, then he gently laid her down again, and said:

"Before any one comes in, Anthony, let me attend to you, and let us hide, if it may be, what has happened from other eyes."

He tore open Anthony's vest and shirt, and disclosed his breast. The knife had struck and dinted the broken token, then had glanced off and dealt a flesh wound. So forcible had been the blow that the impress of the broken crown, its part of a circle, and the ragged edge were stamped on Anthony's skin. The wound he had received was not dangerous. The token had saved his life. Had it not turned the point of Fox's knife, he would have been a dead man; the blade would have entered his heart.

Luke went to the well-chamber, brought thence a towel, tore it down the middle, passed it about the body of Anthony, and bound the linen so fast round him as to draw together the lips of the wound, and stay the flow of blood.

He said not one word whilst thus engaged. Nor did Anthony, whose eyes reverted to Urith, lying with face as marble and motionless upon the floor.

When Luke had finished his work, he said, gravely, "Now I will call in aid. Urith must be conveyed upstairs; you ride for a surgeon, and do not be seen. Go to my house, and tarry till I arrive. Take one of your best horses, and go."

Anthony obeyed in silence.

When Mistress Penwarne had returned from the visit to Magdalen Cleverdon, she had communicated the intelligence of Fox's suit, and of the old Squire's resolution, to Luke, and he at once started for Willsworthy, that he might see Anthony. Of the offer made by the father to Anthony he, of course, knew nothing; but the proposal to marry Bessie to Fox, and for the latter to assume the name of Cleverdon, filled him with concern. Bessie would need a firmer supporter than her Aunt Magdalen to enable her to resist the pressure brought upon her. Moreover, Luke was alarmed at the thought of the result to Anthony. He would be driven to desperation, become violent, and might provoke a broil with Fox, in which weapons would be drawn.

He arrived at Willsworthy in time to save the life of Anthony, and he had no doubt that the quarrel had arisen over the suit for Bessie, and the meditated assumption of the Cleverdon name. Anthony was hot-headed, and would never endure that Fox should step into his rights. But Luke could not understand what had induced Fox to run his head into danger. That he was audacious he knew, but this was a piece of audacity of which he did not suppose him to be capable.

Anthony saddled and bridled the best horse in the stable, and rode to Tavistock, where he placed himself in the hands of a surgeon. He did not explain how he had come by the wound, but he requested the man to keep silence concerning it. Quarrels over their cups were not infrequent among the young men, and these led to blows and sword thrusts, as a matter of course.

The surgeon confirmed the opinion expressed by Luke. The wound was not serious, it would soon heal; and he sewed it up. As he did so, he talked. There was a stir in the place. Squire Crymes of Kilworthy had been sending round messages to the villages, calling on the young men to join him. He made no secret of his intentions to march to the standard of the Duke of Monmouth.

"It is a curious fact," said Surgeon Pierce, "but his Lordship the Earl of Bedford had been sending down a large quantity of arms to his house that had been built out of the abbey ruins. His agent had told folks that the Earl was going to fit up a hall there with pikes, and guns, and casques, and breastplates, for all the world like the ancient halls in the days before Queen Elizabeth. Things do happen strangely," continued the surgeon. "All at once, not an hour ago it was whispered among the young men who were about in the market-place talking of the news, and asking each other whether they'd fight for the Pope or for the Duke, that there were all these weapons in his Lordship's hall; and that no one was on the spot to guard them. Well, they went to the place, got in, and no resistance offered, and armed themselves with whatever they could find, and are off the Lord knows where."

When Anthony left the surgeon's house, he considered what he should do, after having seen his cousin. To Luke's lodgings in the rectory at Peter Tavy he at once rode. His cousin he must speak to. To Willsworthy he could not return. The breach between him and Urith was irreparable. She knew that he had tampered with temptation, and believed him to be more faithless to her than he really had been. He would not, indeed he could not, explain the circumstances to her, for no explanation could make the facts assume a better colour. It was true that he had turned for a while in heart from Urith. Even now, he felt he did not love her. But no more did he love Julian. With the latter he was angry. When he thought of her, his blood began to simmer with rage. If he could have caught her now in his arms, he would have strangled her. She had played with him, lured him on, till she had utterly destroyed his happiness.

What had he done? He had kissed Julian. That was nothing; it was no mortal crime. Why should he not kiss an old friend and comrade whom he had known from childhood? What right had Urith to take offence at that? Had he written their initials on the glass, and united them by a true lovers' knot? He had; but he had also effaced it, and linked his own initial with that of Urith. He loved Urith no longer. His married life had been wretched. He had committed an act of folly in marrying her. Well, was he to be cut off from all his old acquaintances because he was the husband of Urith? Was he to treat them with distance and coldness? And then, how Julian had looked at him! how she had bent over him, and she—yes, she—had kissed him! Was he to sit still as a stone to receive the salutation of a pretty girl? Who would? Not a Puritan, not a saint. It was impossible—impossible to young flesh and blood. A girl's kiss must be returned with usury—tenfold. He was in toils—entangled hand and foot—and he sought in vain to break through them. But he could not remain thus bound—bound by obligation to Urith, whom he did not love—bound by old association to Julian, whom he once had loved, and who loved him still—loved him stormily, fervently. What could he do? He must not go near Julian—he dare not. He could not go back to Urith—to Urith who had given to Fox the mandate to kill him! He had heard her words. It was a planned matter. She had brought Fox to Willsworthy, and had concerted with him how he, Anthony, was to be killed. And yet Anthony knew that she loved him. Her love had been irksome to him—so jealous, so exacting, so greedy had it been. If she had desired and schemed his death, it was not that she hated him, but because she loved him too much—she could not endure that he should be estranged from her and drawn towards another.

But one course was open to him. He must tear—cut his way through the entangled threads. He must free himself at one stroke from Urith and from Julian. He would join Monmouth.

He rode, thus musing, towards Peter Tavy, and halted on the old bridge that spanned in two arches the foaming river. The rain that had fallen earlier had now wholly ceased, but the sky remained covered with a dense grey blanket of felt-like cloud. A fresher air blew; it came from the north, down the river with the water, and fanned Anthony's heated brow.

His wound began now to give him pain; he felt it as a line of red-hot iron near his heart. It was due to pure accident that he was not dead. If matters had fallen out as Urith desired, he would now be lying lifeless on the hearthstone where he had dropped, staggered and upset by the force of Fox's blow, when unprepared to receive it.

Now he recalled that half-challenge offered on the moor when first he met Urith, and had wondered over her bitten hands. He had half-threatened to exasperate her to one of her moods of madness, to see what she would do to him when in such a mood. He had forgotten all about that bit of banter till this moment. Unintentionally he had exasperated her, till she had lost all control over herself, and, unable to hurt him herself, had armed Fox to deal him the blow which was to avenge her wrongs.

He could not go back to the house with the girl who had sought his life. No—there was nothing else for him to do than throw in his lot with Monmouth, and, at the moment, he cared little whether it should be a winning or a losing cause.

"Anthony?"

"Yes. Is that you, Luke?"

A dark figure stepped on to the bridge, and came to the side of the horse.

"I have been home," said the curate. "Urith is ill; she scarce wakes out of one faint to fall into another. I have sent your grandmother to Willsworthy to be with her."

"It is well," answered Anthony. "And, now that we have met here, I wish a word with you, Luke. I am not going back to Willsworthy."

"Not—to Urith?"

"No, I cannot. I am going to ride at once to join the Duke of Monmouth. You have the Protestant cause at heart, Luke, and wish it well; so have I. But that is not all—I must away now. I do not desire to meet Fox for a while."

"No," said Luke, after a moment of consideration; "no, I can understand that. But Bessie must not be left without some one to help her."

"There is yourself. What can I do? Besides, Bess is strong in herself. She will never go against what she believes to be right. She will never step into my shoes, nor will she help Fox to draw them on."

"You cannot ride now, with your wound."

"Bah! That is naught. You said as much yourself."

"Tony, there is something yet I do not understand," said Luke, falteringly. "Did you first strike Fox?"

"No—no. I had my hands behind me. I stood at the hearth."

"But the quarrel was yours with him, rather than his with you. If you did not strike him, why did he aim at you?"

"Luke, there were matters passed of which you need know naught—at least no more than this. My father had offered to receive me back into his good-will once more, to let the past be blotted out, no longer to insist on Bess being wed to Fox, and to return to live at Hall."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Luke, joyously. "Now can I see why Fox came to you, and why he struck you."

"It was on one condition."

"And that was——"

"That I should leave Urith, and never speak to her again."

"Anthony!" Luke's tone was full of terror and pain. "Oh, Anthony! Surely you never—never for one moment—not by half a word—gave consent, or semblance of consent, to this! It would—it would kill her! Oh, Anthony!"

Luke put up both his hands on the pommel of the saddle, and clasped them. What light there was fell on his up-turned, ash-grey face.

"Anthony, answer me. Has she been informed of that? She never thought you could be so cruel—so false; and she has loved you. My God! her whole heart has been given to you—to you, and to no one else; and you have not valued it as you should have done. Because you have had to lose this and that, you have resented it on her. She has had to bear your ill-humour—she has suffered, and has been saddened. And now—no! I cannot think it. You have not let her know that this offer was made."

The sweat drops poured and rolled off Luke's brow. He looked up, and waited on Anthony for a reply.

"She did know it," answered the latter, "but that was Fox's doing. He told her; and told her what was false, that I intended to accept the offer, and leave her. No, Luke, I have done many things that are wrong, I have been inconsiderate, but I could not do this. And now I bid you go to-morrow to my father, see him, and tell him my answer. That is expressed in one word—Never."

Luke seized his hand, and wrung it. "That is my own dear cousin Anthony!" he said, and then added, "But why away at once, and Urith so ill?"

"I must away at once. I cannot return to her." Anthony hesitated for some while; at last he said, in a low tone, "I will tell you why—she thinks me false to her, and in a measure I have been so. She thinks I no longer love her—and it is true. My love is dead. Luke—I cannot return."

"Oh, Urith—poor Urith!" groaned the curate, and let his hands fall.

"Now I go. Whatever haps, naught can be worse than the state of matters at present. If you can plead in any way for me, when I am away, do so. I would have her think better of me than she does—but I love her no more."

Then he rode away.

Luke remained on the bridge, looking over into the rushing water—the river was full.

"Poor Urith! My God—and it was I—it was I who united them." Then he turned into the direction of Hall. "I will go there, and bear Anthony's message to his father at once."