He has sent a challenge to Mr.
Stanmore. I--I--care for Mr. Stanmore, Lady Bearwarden--at least, I
_did_. I was engaged to him." (Here, notwithstanding the tumult of her
feelings, a little twinge crossed Lady Bearwarden to learn how quickly
Dick had consoled himself.) "I'm only a girl, but I know these things
_can_ be prevented, and that's why I'm here now. You've done the
mischief; you are bound to repair it; and I have a right to come to
you for help."

"But I haven't done anything!" pleaded Maud, in for humbler tones than
she habitually used. "I love my husband very dearly, and I've not
set eyes on Mr. Stanmore but once since I married, in Oxford Street,
looking into a shop-window, and directly he caught sight of me, he got
out of the way as if I had the plague! There's some mistake. Not a
minute should be lost in setting it right. I wonder what we ought to
do!"

"And--and you're not in love with Mr. Stanmore? and he isn't going to
run away with you? Lady Bearwarden, are you quite sure? And I don't
deserve to be so happy. I judged him so harshly, so unkindly. What
will he think of me when he knows it? He'll never speak to me again."

Then the tears came in good earnest, and presently Miss Algernon
grew more composed, giving her hostess an account of herself, her
prospects, her Putney home, and the person she most depended on in the
world to get them all out of their present difficulty, Simon Perkins,
the painter. "I know he can stop it," pursued Nina eagerly, "and be
will, too. He told the other man nothing should be done in a hurry.
I heard him say so, for I listened, Lady Bearwarden, I _did_. And I
would again if I had the same reason. Wouldn't _you_? I hope the other
man will be hanged. He seemed to want them so to kill each other.
Don't you think he can be punished? For it's murder, you know,
_really_, after all."

Without entering into the vexed question of duelling--a practice for
which each lady in her heart entertained a secret respect--the sisters
consulted long and earnestly on the best method of preventing a
conflict that should endanger the two lives now dearer to them than
ever.

They drank tea over it, we may be sure, and in the course of that
refreshment could not fail to observe how the gloves they laid aside
were the same number (six and three-quarters, if you would like to
know), how their hands were precisely similar in shape, how the turn
of their arms and wrists corresponded as closely as