eautiful in the midst of confusion. They went on for a time in a
mood that Archdale dreaded to break in upon. But there was something
that he must tell her, lest she should learn it in a still harder way.

"I have news," he began at last, reluctantly.

"News?" she cried. "From home? About any one there? Not bad?"

"Yes, bad, but not from home at all. News that I wish you need never
hear; but this cannot be helped; and I know all that can be known about
the matter. Shall I tell you?"

"Yes," she answered, faintly.

"It is about Edmonson."

"I thought so."

"And Harwin."

"Yes. They"--

"They fought," he finished,--"yes. I don't know how they managed it, nor
how Harwin could leave the fleet, but in some way he did." The speaker
paused.

"Well?" she said, tremulously, after a silence.

"Harwin was killed." Archdale felt her hand tighten its grasp. "And
Edmonson," he added. Suddenly she drew away from him, and looked at him
searchingly, her breath coming unevenly.

"What!" she gasped. "Both! Both of them! Two deaths! How could it be?
Tell me what you mean."

"That is what I mean. It is true. Edmonson, you remember, willed, at
last, to recover, and he did so rapidly, that is, he was well enough to
go about, though not to report for duty. How he and Harwin arranged
matters, or met in the lonely spot in which they were found, I can't
explain,--nobody can. Evidently, it was a duel, and it appears to have
been without seconds, to make the matter more secret. Each must have
given the other his death, for they were found--But I need not tell you
all this."

"Yes, tell me how you are sure that they both--died in the duel."

"Edmonson must have given the death-wound first, for it seemed as if
Harwin, in an expiring agony, had sprung upon him and stabbed him to the
heart, as he fell himself." Elizabeth stood motionless, her face turned
away and one hand over her eyes. "The news was brought to the General
yesterday morning, and he sent me over to investigate," added Archdale
after a pause, in which he had studied her with the utmost attention.

Suddenly she turned quite away from him with a low moan. "It is
terrible, terrible!" she said under her breath. "And I--I--Oh, take me
back to the house!"

As Archdale obeyed, they went on without speaking, she no longer holding
his arm, but shrinking into herself as if she would have liked to be
invisible altogether.

"I think," she said at last, slowly, "that I ought t