l's motives, it was plain from his most perfect composure that
they were not motives of fear. His grace's half-contemptuous smile was
dissipated.

"This is mere trifling, Mr. Caryll," he reminded his principal, "and
time is speeding. Your withdrawal now would not only be damaging to
yourself; it would be damaging to the lady of whose fair name you have
made yourself the champion. You must see that it is too late for doubts
on the score of this meeting."

"Ay--by God!" swore Gascoigne hotly. "What a pox ails you, Caryll?"

Mr. Caryll took off his hat and flung it on the ground behind him.
"We must go on, then," said he. "Gascoigne, see to the swords with his
lordship's friend there."

With a relieved look, the major went forward to make the final
preparations, whilst Mr. Caryll, attended by Wharton, rapidly divested
himself of coat and waistcoat, then kicked off his light shoes, and
stood ready, a slight, lithe, graceful figure in white Holland shirt and
pearl-colored small clothes.

A moment later the adversaries were face to face--Rotherby, divested of
his wig and with a kerchief bound about his close-cropped head, all a
trembling eagerness; Mr. Caryll with a reluctance lightly masked by a
dangerous composure.

There was a perfunctory salute--a mere presenting of arms--and the
blades swept round in a half-circle to their first meeting. But
Rotherby, without so much as allowing his steel to touch his opponent's,
as the laws of courtesy demanded, swirled it away again into the
higher lines and lunged. It was almost like a foul attempt to take his
adversary unawares and unprepared, and for a second it looked as if it
must succeed. It must have succeeded but for the miraculous quickness
of Mr. Caryll. Swinging round on the ball of his right foot, lightly and
gracefully as a dancing master, and with no sign of haste or fear in his
amazing speed, he let the other's hard-driven blade glance past him, to
meet nothing but the empty air.

As a result, by the very force of the stroke, Rotherby found himself
over-reached and carried beyond his point of aim; while Mr. Caryll's
sideward movement brought him not only nearer his opponent, but entirely
within his guard.

It was seen by them all, and by none with such panic as Rotherby
himself, that, as a consequence of his quasi-foul stroke, the viscount
was thrown entirely at the mercy of his opponent thus at the very outset
of the encounter, before their blades had so much