n its breast.

For a moment the scene vanished. Hugh saw again the quiet study with its
electric reading-lamp, the pistols over the mantel-piece, the tiger
glint in Lord Newhaven's eyes. He was like Cassius. He, too, had been
ready to risk life, everything in the prosecution of his hate.

"He shall never stand looking down on my body," said Hugh to himself,
"with his cursed foot upon me." And he realized that if he had been a
worthier antagonist, that also might have been. The play dealt with men.
Cassius and Lord Newhaven were men. But what was he?

The fear of death leading the love of life by the hand took with shame a
lower seat. Hugh saw them at last in their proper places. If he could
have died then he would have died cheerfully, gladly, as he saw Cassius
die by his own hand, counting death the little thing it is. Afterwards,
as he stood in the crowd near the door, where the rain was delaying the
egress, he saw suddenly Lord Newhaven's face watching him. His heart
leaped. "He has come to make me keep my word," he said to himself, the
exaltation of the play still upon him. "I will not avoid him. Let him do
it," and he pressed forward towards him.

Lord Newhaven looked fixedly at him for a moment, and then disappeared.

"He will follow me and stab me in the back," said Hugh. "I will walk
home by the street where the pavement is up, and let him do it."

He walked slowly, steadily on, looking neither to right nor left.
Presently he came to a barrier across a long deserted street, with a red
lamp keeping guard over it. He walked deliberately up it. He had no
fear. In the middle he stopped, and fumbled in his pocket for a
cigarette.

A soft step was coming up behind him.

"It will be quickly over," he said to himself. "Wait. Don't look round."

He stood motionless. His silver cigarette-case dropped from his hand. He
looked at it for a second, forgetting to pick it up. A dirty hand
suddenly pounced upon it, and a miserable ragged figure flew past him up
the street. Hugh stared after it, bewildered, and then looked round. The
street was quite empty. He drew a long breath, and something between
relief and despair took hold of him.

"Then he does not want to, after all. He has not even followed me. Why
was he there? He was waiting for me. What horrible revenge is he
planning against me. Is he laying a second trap for me?"

* * * * *

The following night Hugh read in the evening pa