“You expect him to send you a challenge?” said she, a woman, and of course ignorant of the etiquette of the duel.

“No,” he replied, correcting her. “That must come from me—as the party insulted. If it had only been otherwise—” he went on muttering to himself. “What a mistake not to pitch into him on the spot! If I’d only done that, the thing might have ended there; or at all events left me a corner to creep out of.”

This last was not spoken aloud. The ex-guardsman was not yet so grandly degraded as to make such a humiliating confession to his wife. She might see, but not hear it.

“No chance now,” he continued to reflect. “Those two fellows present. Besides a score of others, witnesses to all that passed; heard every word; sa. . . Read More