tle on
the landing. The Captain was in one of his furious rages; Mr. Varleigh
was firm and cool as usual. After listening for a minute or so, I heard
enough (in my opinion) to justify me in entering the room. I caught
my master in the act of lifting his cane--threatening to strike Mr.
Varleigh. He instantly dropped his hand, and turned on me in a fury at
my intrusion. Taking no notice of this outbreak of temper, I gave him
his friend's card, and went out. A talk followed in voices too low for
me to hear outside the room, and then the Captain approached the door.
I got out of his way, feeling very uneasy about what was to come next. I
could not presume to question Mr. Varleigh. The only thing I could think
of was to tell the young lady's aunt what I had seen and heard, and
to plead with Miss Laroche herself to make peace between them. When I
inquired for the ladies at their lodgings, I was told that they had left
Maplesworth.

I saw no more of the Captain that night.

The next morning he seemed to be quite himself again. He said to me,
"Thomas, I am going sketching in Herne Wood. Take the paint-box and the
rest of it, and put this into the carriage."

He handed me a packet as thick as my arm, and about three feet long,
done up in many folds of canvas. I made bold to ask what it was.
He answered that it was an artist's sketching umbrella, packed for
traveling.

In an hour's time, the carriage stopped on the road below Herne Wood.
My master said he would carry his sketching things himself, and I was to
wait with the carriage. In giving him the so-called umbrella, I took the
occasion of his eye being off me for the moment to pass my hand over it
carefully; and I felt, through the canvas, the hilt of a sword. As an
old soldier, I could not be mistaken--the hilt of a sword.

What I thought, on making this discovery, does not much matter. What I
did was to watch the Captain into the wood, and then to follow him.

I tracked him along the path to where there was a clearing in the midst
of the trees. There he stopped, and I got behind a tree. He undid the
canvas, and produced _two_ swords concealed in the packet. If I had felt
any doubts before, I was certain of what was coming now. A duel without
seconds or witnesses, by way of keeping the town magistrates in the
dark--a duel between my master and Mr. Varleigh! As his name came into
my mind, the man himself appeared, making his way into the clearing from
the other side of