e so
even in your own country under the circumstances. M. le Comte, where
were your seconds? Your wine-selling has opened in villainously bad
circumstances, and you are in error to assume that the details of the
code may be waived even among the Highland hills."

A servant entered.

"Take this gentleman to the fosse," said the Duke, with the ring of
steel in his voice and his eyes snapping.

"At least there is as little form about my incarceration as about my
poor duel," said Count Victor.

"My father would have been somewhat more summary in circumstances like
these,", said the Duke, "and, by Heaven! the old style had its merits
too; but these are different days, though, if I were you, I fancy I'd
prefer the short shrift of Long David the dempster to the felon's cell.
Be good enough to leave your sword."

Count Victor said never a word, but placed the weapon in a corner of the
room, made a deep _conge_, and went forth a prisoner.

In the last few minutes of the interview he had forgotten the cold,
but now when he was led into the open air he felt it in his coatless
condition more poignant than his apprehension at his position otherwise.
He shivered as he walked along the fosse, through which blew a shrewd
north wind, driving the first flakes of an approaching snowstorm. The
fosse was wide and deep, girding the four-square castle, mantled on
its outer walls by dense ivy, where a few birds twittered. The wall was
broken at intervals by the doors of what might very well serve as cells
if cells were wanted, and it was to one of these that Count Victor found
himself consigned.

"My faith, Victor, thou art a fool of the first water!" he said to
himself as he realised the ignominy of his situation. For he was in the
most dismal of dungeons, furnished as scantily as a cellar, fireless,
damp, and almost in sepulchral darkness, for what light might have
entered by a little window over the door was obscured by drifted snow.

By-and-by his eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, and he concluded
that he was in what had at one time been a wine-cellar, as bottles
were racked against the back wall of his arched apartment. They were
empty--he confirmed his instinct on that point quickly enough, for
the events of the morning left him in the mood for refreshment. It was
uncomfortable all this; there was always the possibility of justice
miscarried; but at no time had he any fear of savage reprisals such as
had alarmed him when