ul doubt assailed him that
if he did not hurry away from that taunting voice he might be tempted
to forget himself--and what torture that would mean to Cynthia! He was
indeed a prey to complex emotions that rendered him utterly incapable
of forming a well-balanced judgment. Nothing more illogical, more
ill-advised, more thoroughly unsuited to achieve its object than the
proposed duel could well be mooted, yet the sheer malignity of
Marigny's ruffianly device to attain his ends had impelled him to that
final madness. Notions of right and wrong were topsy-turvy in his
brain. He was carried along on a current of passion that overturned
every barrier imposed by sense and prudence. It seemed quite
reasonable to one who had often risked life and limb for his country,
who, from mere love of sport, had faced many an infuriated tiger and
skulking lion, that he should be justified by the eternal law in
striving to rid the world of this ultra-beast. He had not scrupled to
kill a poisonous snake--why should he flinch from killing a man whose
chief equipment was the poison-laden fang of slander? Happily, he
could use a sword in a fashion that might surprise Marigny most
wofully. If he did not succeed in killing the wretch, he would surely
disable him, and the thought sent such a thrill of fierce pleasure
through his veins that he resolutely closed his eyes to the lamentable
results that must follow his own death.

Cynthia, at least, would not suffer; that was all he cared for. No
matter what happened, he did not imagine for one moment that she would
marry Marigny. But that eventuality hardly troubled him at all. The
Frenchman had chosen the sword, and he must abide by its stern
arbitrament.

"Home!" he said to Dale, finding his retainer's eye bent inquiringly
on him when he reached the street. The word had a curiously detached
sound in his ears. "Home!" It savored of rank lunacy to think that
within a few short hours he would be standing on foreign soil,
striving desperately with naked steel to defend his own life and
destroy another's.

CHAPTER XV

THE OUTCOME

The fine weather which had endured so long gave way that night.
Storm-clouds swept up from the Atlantic, and England was drenched in
rain when Medenham quitted Charing Cross at 9 p.m. At the eleventh
hour he determined to take Dale with him, but that belated display of
wisdom arose more from the need he felt of human companionship than
from any sense of the a