Hugh lifted his hand and struck. The younger man sprang back, then
forward, and was at his elder's throat. For an instant they struggled,
silently, terribly, slipping on the red pine-needles. Then Pete gave
a hard laugh. "Are we tigers?" he asked, and he pulled himself back
and leaned, shaking, against a tree-trunk, gripping it with his hands.
His blue eyes were cold and blazing in his white face, against which
Hugh's blow had made a mark. "You won't strike me again," Pete said.
All boyishness was gone from his hard, level voice. "Go on. Say what
you like. I'll listen."

"You liar!" stormed Hugh. "You cheat!"

Pete laughed again.

A certain quality in his bitter self-control flicked Hugh. He tried
to emulate the young man's coolness.

"I've trusted you," he began again; "and behind my back you have been
trying to win the love of the woman who has promised to be my wife."

"I have not."

"You were not making love to her there, then, when I came up behind
you? When you were so excited that you didn't hear me? when you were
moving toward her--trembling all over? _I_ felt your arm!"

Pete's eyes dropped, then lifted as though under a great weight.

"And you say you're not a liar!"