pter of
calamity suddenly opened where happiness had promised.

"A duel! but he won't, my lord,--he mustn't fight, my lord."

"He must come on the ground," said my lord, positively.

Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord Mountfalcon said: "I
went out of my way, sir, in speaking to you. I saw you from the window.
Your friend is mad. Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad. I have
particular reasons to wish not to injure the young man, and if an apology
is to be got out of him when we're on the ground, I'll take it, and we'll
stop the damned scandal, if possible. You understand? I'm the insulted
party, and I shall only require of him to use formal words of excuse to
come to an amicable settlement. Let him just say he regrets it. Now,
sir," the nobleman spoke with considerable earnestness, "should anything
happen--I have the honour to be known to Mrs. Feverel--and I beg you will
tell her. I very particularly desire you to let her know that I was not
to blame."

Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With this on his mind
Ripton hurried down to those who were waiting in joyful trust at Raynham.

CHAPTER XLIV

The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his pulse, in occult
calculation hideous to mark, said half-past eleven on the midnight.
Adrian, wearing a composedly amused expression on his dimpled plump
face,--held slightly sideways, aloof from paper and pen,--sat writing at
the library table. Round the baronet's chair, in a semi-circle, were
Lucy, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton, that very ill bird at
Raynham. They were silent as those who question the flying minutes.
Ripton had said that Richard was sure to come; but the feminine eyes
reading him ever and anon, had gathered matter for disquietude, which
increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in his habitual air of
speculative repose.

Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the first to speak and
betray his state.

"Pray, put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing," he said,
half-turning hastily to his brother behind him.

Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned: "It's no nightmare,
this!"

His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained obscure. Adrian's
pen made a louder flourish on his manuscript; whether in commiseration or
infernal glee, none might say.

"What are you writing?" the baronet inquired testily of Adrian, after a
pause; twitched, it may be, by a sort of jealousy of the w