deaf to earthly laws and considerations, the angry heart, in the first
heat of its wild career, still stops obedient to the voice of religion.
Amid the dross of human frailty, the pure metal shines with the lustre
that surrounds the sinner in the morning of his conversion.

They rose almost together, and their faces, so lately flushed with
anger, were now calm and subdued.

"Farewell! Henry de Stramen," said Gilbert, as he leaped into the
saddle.

"Farewell!" replied his antagonist, and, almost side by side, they
proceeded in the direction of the bell.

A deadly feud was raging between the families of Hers and Stramen. It
had continued for more than twenty years, and now burned with unabated
fury. It originated in some dispute between Gilbert's father and the
Lord Robert de Stramen, Henry's uncle, which resulted in the death of
the latter. The Baron of Hers was charged with the murder, and, though
he persisted in declaring his innocence, Henry's impetuous father, the
Lord Sandrit de Stramen, swore over the dead body of his brother to take
a bitter revenge on the Baron of Hers and all his line. Henry de Stramen
had been nursed in the bitterest hostility to all who bore the name of
Hers, and the unrelenting persecution of the Lord Sandrit had made
Gilbert detest most cordially the house of Stramen. It was with mutual
hatred, then, that the two young men had met at the spring. They knew
each other well, for they had often fought hand to hand, with their
kinsmen and serfs around them. Now they were alone, and what a triumph
would be the victor's! but the bell, the Tell of peace, the
silver-tongued herald of the truce of God, had sheathed their weapons.