lips dry with fright. I tried to think soberly over the future,
but could get no conclusion save that I would not do murder. My
conscience was pretty bad about the whole business. I was engaged in
the kind of silly conflict which I had been bred to abhor; I had none
of the common gentleman's notions about honour; and I knew that if by
any miracle I slew Grey I should be guilty in my own eyes of murder. I
would not risk the guilt. If God had determined that I should perish
before my time, then perish I must.

This despair brought me a miserable kind of comfort. When I reached
home I went straight to Faulkner.

"I have quarrelled to-day with a gentleman, John, and have promised him
satisfaction. You must act for me in the affair. Some one will come to
see you this evening, and the meeting had better be at dawn to-morrow."

He opened his eyes very wide. "Who is it, then?" he asked.

"Mr. Charles Grey of Grey's Hundred," I replied.

This made him whistle low, "He's a fine swordsman," he said. "I never
heard there was any better in the dominion. You'll be to fight with
swords?"

I thought hard for a minute. I was the challenged, and so had the
choice of weapons. "No," said I, "you are to appoint pistols, for it is
my right."

At this Faulkner slowly grinned. "It's a new weapon for these affairs.
What if they'll not accept? But it's no business of mine, and I'll
remember your wishes." And the strange fellow turned again to his
accounts.

I spent the evening looking over my papers and making various
appointments in case I did not survive the morrow. Happily the work I
had undertaken for Lawrence was all but finished, and of my ordinary
business Faulkner knew as much as myself. I wrote a letter to Uncle
Andrew, telling him frankly the situation, that he might know how
little choice I had. It was a cold-blooded job making these
dispositions, and I hope never to have the like to do again. Presently
I heard voices outside, and Faulkner came to the door with Mr. George
Mason, the younger, of Thornby, who passed for the chief buck in
Virginia. He gave me a cold bow.

"I have settled everything with this gentleman, but I would beg of you,
sir, to reconsider your choice of arms. My friend will doubtless be
ready enough to humour you, but you have picked a barbarous weapon for
Christian use."

"It's my only means of defence," I said.

"Then you stick to your decision?"

"Assuredly," said I, and, with a shrug of the shou