“Where are they?” exclaimed Colonel Holliday.

“In the garden,” the girl said, bursting into tears.  “The wicked young man was rude to me, and wanted to kiss me, and Monsieur Rupert knocked him down, and then they began to fight, and I ran away.”

Monsieur Dessin swore a very deep oath in French, and was about to hurry out with Colonel Holliday.  Then he stopped, and putting his hand on the colonel’s shoulder, said coldly: 

“Do not let us hurry, sir.  Monsieur Rupert has taken the matter in his hands.  It is as well that he should kill this fellow as that I should have to do so.”

Just at this moment they reached the door, and a young man came running up to the house shouting: 

“Young Mr. Brownlow is killed.  Help! help!”

“I think, Monsieur Dessin,” Colonel Holliday said, stopping, “it would be as well if you and mademoiselle were for the present to leave us.  There will be trouble enough, and the fewer in it the better.  Sir William is a hot man, and you are not a cool one.  Enough mischief has been done.”

“You are right,” Monsieur Dessin said.  “Will you tell Monsieur Rupert that so long as my arm can lift a sword it is at his service, and that I am his debtor for life.

“Come, Adele, let us leave by the front of the house.”

Colonel Holliday now hurried out into the garden, just as Sir William Brownlow, accompanied by his son’s friend, rushed out of the house, followed by some lackeys with scared faces.

Not a word was spoken as they ran to the spot where young Brownlow was lying.

Sir William and Colonel Holliday both knelt beside him, and the latter put his finger to his pulse.

“He is not dead,” he said, after a moment.  “Ralph, saddle a horse, and ride with all speed to Derby for a doctor.”

“Ay,” Sir William said, “and tell the chief magistrate that he is wanted here, with one of his constables, for that murder has been done.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” Colonel Holliday said.

“Sir William Brownlow, I make every excuse for you in your grief, but even from you I will permit no such word to be used.  Your son has been wounded in fair fight, and whether he dies or not, alters the circumstances no whit.  My grandson found him engaged in offering a gross insult to a young lady in the garden of my house.  He did what I should have done had I so found him—­he knocked him down.  They fought, and your son was worsted.  I think, sir, that for the credit of your house you had best be quiet over the matter.

“Hush, sir,” he went on sternly, seeing that the baronet was about to answer furiously.  “I am an old man, but I will put up with bluster from no man.”

Colonel Holliday’s repute as a swordsman was well known, and Sir William Brownlow swallowed his passion in silence.  A door was taken off its hinges, and the insensible young man was carried into the house.  There he was received by Mistress Holliday, who was vehement in her reproaches against Rupert, and even against Colonel Holliday, who had, as she said, encouraged him in brawling.