I am not to have her, what better
place for me than the grave."

He entered Mr. Houseman's private room and opened his business at once.

But a singular concurrence of circumstances induced Lawyer Houseman to
confide to a third party the substance of what passed between this young
gentleman and himself. So, to avoid repetition, the best way will be to
let Houseman tell this part of my tale, instead of me; and I only hope
his communication, when it comes, may be half as interesting to my
reader as it was to his hearer.

Suffice it for me to say that lawyer and client were closeted a good
hour, and were still conversing together when a card was handed in to
Mr. Houseman that seemed to cause him both surprise and pleasure.

"In five minutes," said he to the clerk. Griffith took the hint, and
bade him good-bye directly.

As he went out, the gentleman who had sent in his card rose from a seat
in the outer office to go in.

It was Mr. George Neville.

Griffith Gaunt and he saluted and scanned each other curiously. They
little thought to meet again so soon. The clerks saw nothing more than
two polite gentlemen passing each other.

* * * * *

The more Griffith thought of the approaching duel, the less he liked it.
He was an impulsive man, for one thing; and with such, a cold fit
naturally succeeds a hot one. And besides, as his heat abated, Reason
and Reflection made themselves heard, and told him that in a contest
with a formidable rival he was throwing away an advantage. After all,
Kate had shown him great favor; she had ridden Neville's horse after
him, and made him resign his purpose of leaving her; surely, then, she
preferred him on the whole to Neville: yet he must go and risk his
chance of possessing her upon a personal encounter, in which Neville was
at least as likely to kill him as he to kill Neville. He saw too late
that he was playing his rival's game. He felt cold and despondent, and
more and more convinced that he should never marry Kate, but that she
would very likely bury him.

With all this he was too game to recoil, and indeed he hated his rival
too deeply. So, like many a man before him, he was going doggedly to the
field against his judgement, with little to win and all to lose.

His deeper and more solemn anxieties were diversified by a lighter one.
A few days ago he had invited half the county to bury Mr. Charlton on
Saturday, the 19th of February. But now he had