ight."

Then telling Lawless I should sit up for him, and taking leave of two
or three members of the party with whom I was most intimate, I drew
Oaklands' arm within my own, and, unlocking the door, left the room,
Wilford's fierce black eyes glaring at us with a look of disappointed
fury, such as I have witnessed in a caged tiger, being the last object I
beheld.

CHAPTER XXII -- TAMING A SHREW

"I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;
A quarrel."

"I do repent; but Heaven hath pleased it so
To punish me with this."

"We will compound this quarrel."

"'What's that?'--'Why, a horse.'
"'Tell thou the tale.'"

"Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
And show more signs of her obedience."

"Now go thy ways, thou hast tamed a curst shrew."
--_Shakspeare_.

"WHY did you prevent me from giving that insolent scoundrel the lesson
he deserved?" was Oaklands' first observation as we left the quadrangle
in which Lawless's rooms were situated; "I do not thank you for it,
Frank."

"My dear Harry," replied I, "you are excited at present; when you are a
little more cool you will see that I could not have acted otherwise than
I did. Even supposing I could have borne such a thing myself, what would
have ~174~~been said of me if I had allowed you to fight in my quarrel?
no honourable man would have permitted me to associate with him
afterwards."

"But I don't see that the quarrel was yours at all," returned Oaklands;
"your share of it was ended when the toast affair came to a conclusion;
the rest of the matter was purely personal between him and myself."

"How can that be, when the origin of it was his doubting, or pretending
to doubt, the truth of the anecdote which I related?" inquired I. "No;
depend upon it, Harry, I have acted rightly, though I bitterly regret
now having gone to the party, and so exposed myself to all this. I have
always looked upon duelling with the greatest abhorrence; to run the
risk of committing murder (for I can call it by no milder name), when at
the very moment in which the crime is consummated you may fall yourself,
and thus even the forlorn hope of living to repent be cut off from you,
appears to me little short of madness. On one point I am resolved--if I
do go out with him, nothing shall induce me to fire at him; I will not
die a murderer, at all events."

"Shoul