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 possible that a quick quarrel might arise between the two strong men, interrupted:

"Perhaps Captain, you don't understand our part of the world. In Kentucky we still hold with the old laws of Honour which we sometimes hear are dead—or at any rate back numbers—in other countries. My father has fought duels all his life. The Ogilvies have been fighters way back to the time of the settlement by Lord Baltimore. My Cousin Dick tells me—for father never talks of them unless he has to—that they never forced quarrels for their own ends; though I must say that they are pretty touchy"—She was in turn interrupted by her father who said quickly:

Touchy' is the word, my girl, though I fear you use it too lightly. A man should be touchy where honour is concerned. For Honour is the first thing in all the world. What men should live for; what men should die for! To a gentleman there is nothing so holy. And if he can't fight for such a sacred thing, he does not deserve to have it. He does not know what it means."

Through the pause came the grave voice of the Captain, a valiant man who on state occasions wore on his right breast in accordance with the etiquette of the occasion the large gold medal of the Royal Humane Society:

"There are many things that men should fight for—and die for if need be. But I am bound to say that I don't hold that the chiefest among them is a personal grievance; even if it be on the subject of the measure of one's own self-respect." Noticing the coming frown on the Kentuckian's face, he went on a thought more quickly: "But, though I don't hold with duelling, Colonel Ogilvie, for any cause, I am bound to say that if a man thinks and believes that it is right to fight, then it becomes a duty which he should fulfil!"

For answer the Colonel held out his hand which the other took warmly. That handshake cemented a friendship of