I. Since when has walking become a vice in your estimation?
You seem to be in a fierce mood. What's the matter?"

"I will tell you what's the matter. You have been acting
like a brute to the girl you profess to love."

"Plain words! But between friends frankness is best. Did
she ask you to tell me?"

"No! You know too well she would die before she would
speak. You are killing her, that is what you are doing with
your devilish moods and mysteries. You must stop. Do you
hear? You must give her up."

"I hear well enough, and it sounds like a word for her and
two for yourself. Is that it?"

"Damn you," cried the younger man, "let the words go!
we'll settle it this way"----and he sprang at the other's
throat.

Keene, cool and well-braced, met him with a heavy blow in
the chest. He recoiled, and I rushed between them, holding
Graham back, and pleading for self-control. As we stood thus,
panting and confused, on the edge of the cliff, a singing
voice floated up to us from the shadows across the valley. It
was Herrick's song again:

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free