--"I
cannot doubt that I speak to the Master of Ravenswood?" No answer was
returned. "I cannot doubt," resumed the Colonel, trembling with rising
passion, "that I speak to the murderer of my sister!"
"You have named me but too truly," said Ravenswood, in a hollow and
tremulous voice.
"If you repent what you have done," said the Colonel, "may your
penitence avail you before God; with me it shall serve you nothing.
Here," he said, giving a paper, "is the measure of my sword, and a
memorandum of the time and place of meeting. Sunrise to-morrow morning,
on the links to the east of Wolf's Hope."
The Master of Ravenswood held the paper in his hand, and seemed
irresolute. At length he spoke--"Do not," he said, "urge to farther
desperation a wretch who is already desperate. Enjoy your life while you
can, and let me seek my death from another."
"That you never, never shall!" said Douglas Ashton. "You shall die by my
hand, or you shall complete the ruin of my family by taking my life. If
you refuse my open challenge, there is no advantage I will not take of
you, no indignity with which I will not load you, until the very name of
Ravenswood shall be the sign of everything that is dishonourable, as it
is already of all that is villainous.
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