"You may have reason--" She hesitated, then, with a pretty confidence in
her eyes, "For my sake please to pass provocation unnoticed. None will
doubt your courage if you overlook and refuse to be affronted."

"I cannot pass an affront," I said, bluntly. "What do you mean? Who is
this quarrelsome Mr. Butler?"

"An Ormond-Butler," she said, earnestly; "but--but he has had trouble--a
terrible disappointment in love, they say. He is morose at times--a
sullen, suspicious man, one of those who are ever seeking for offence
where none is dreamed of; a man quick to give umbrage, quicker to resent
a fancied slight--a remorseless eye that fixes you with the passionless
menace of a hawk's eye, dreamily marking you for a victim. He is cruel
to his servants, cruel to his animals, terrible in his hatred of these
Boston people. Nobody knows why they ridiculed him; but they did. That
adds to the fuel which feeds the flame in him--that and the brooding on
his own grievances--"

She moved nearer to me and laid her hand on my sleeve. "Cousin, the man
is mad; I ask you to remember that in a moment of just provocation. It
would grieve me if he were your enemy--I should not sleep for thinking."

"Dorothy," I said, smiling, "I use some weapons better than I do the
war-axe. Are you afraid for me?"

She looked at me seriously. "In that little world which I know there is
much that terrifies men, yet I can say, without boasting, there is not,
in my world, one living creature or one witch or spirit that I
dread--no, not even Catrine Montour!"