'This is positive? This is really true?' she said, burning and dreading
to realize the magical change it pointed on, and touching him with her
other hand, loathing herself, loathing parents and friends who had
brought her to the plight of desiring some terrible event in sheer
necessity. Not she, it was the situation they had created which was
guilty! By dint of calling out on their heartlessness, and a spur of
conscience, she roused the feeling of compassion:

'But, Marko! Marko! poor child! you cannot fight; you have never fired
a pistol or a gun in your life. Your health was always too delicate for
these habits of men; and you could not pull a trigger taking aim, do you
not know?'

'I have been practising for a couple of hours to-day,' he said.

Compassion thrilled her. 'A couple of hours! Unhappy boy! But do you
not know that he is a dead shot? He is famous for his aim. He never
misses. He can do all the duellist's wonders both with sword and pistol,
and that is why he was respected when he refused the duel because he--
before these parents of mine drove him . . . and me! I think we are
both mad--he despised duelling. He! He! Alvan! who has challenged my
father! I have heard him speak of duelling as cowardly. But what is he?
what has he changed to? And it would be cowardly to kill you, Marko.'

'I take my chance,' Marko said.

'You have no chance. His aim is unerring.' She insisted on the
deadliness of his aim, and dwelt on it with a gloating delight that her
conscience approved, for she was persuading the youth to shun his fatal
aim.