rough country, though;
but what's that to an Irishwoman?" He caught the quickening of Miss
Armytage's eye. "The prospect interests you, I see."

Miss Armytage admitted it, and thus they made conversation for a while,
what time the great soldier sipped his wine and water to wash the dust
of his morning ride from his throat. When at last he set down an empty
glass Sir Terence took this as the intimation of his readiness to deal
with official matters, and, rising, he announced himself entirely at his
lordship's service.

Lord Wellington claimed his attention for a full hour with the details
of several matters that are not immediately concerned with this
narrative. Having done, he rose at last from Sir Terence's desk, at
which he had been sitting, and took up his riding-crop and cocked hat
from the chair where he had placed them.

"And now," he said, "I think I will ride into Lisbon and endeavour to
come to an understanding with Count Redondo and Don Miguel Forjas."

Sir Terence advanced to open the door. But Wellington checked him with a
sudden sharp inquiry.

"You published my order against duelling, did you not?"

"Immediately upon receiving it, sir."

"Ha! It doesn't seem to have taken long for the order to be infringed,
then." His manner was severe, his eyes stern. Sir Terence was conscious
of a quickening of his pulses. Nevertheless his answer was calmly
regretful:

"I am afraid not."

The great man nodded. "Disgraceful! I heard of it from Fletcher this
morning. Captain What's-his-name had just reported himself under arrest,
I understand, and Fletcher had received a note from you giving the
grounds for this. The deplorable part of these things is that they
always happen in the most troublesome manner conceivable. In Berkeley's
case the victim was a nephew of the Patriarch's. Samoval, now, was a
person of even greater consequence, a close friend of several members
of the Council. His death will be deeply resented, and may set up fresh
difficulties. It is monstrous vexatious." And abruptly he asked "What
did they quarrel about?"

O'Moy trembled, and his glance avoided the other's gimlet eye. "The only
quarrel that I am aware of between them," he said, "was concerned with
this very enactment of your lordship's. Samoval proclaimed it infamous,
and Tremayne resented the term. Hot words passed between them, but
the altercation was allowed to go no further at the time by myself and
others who were present."

H