horrible yesterday.' I don't
remember what I said, but he thanked me and pressed my hand,--a great
deal from him, for he is not certainly demonstrative; and then he
pressed me to tell about you all,--how you were, and what doing. He
inquired so frequently, and recurred so often to Bella, that I almost
suspected something between them,--though, after all, I ought to have
known that this was a conquest above Bella's reach,--the man who might
any day choose from the highest in Europe.

"'Now a little about yourself, Maitland,' said I. 'How long have you
been ill?'

"'This is the seventeenth day,' said he, sighing. 'Caffarelli of course
told you fever--but here it is;' and he turned on his side and showed
me a great mass of appliances and bandages. 'I have been wounded. I went
out with a fellow whom none of my friends would consent to my meeting,
and I was obliged to take my valet Fenton for my second, and he, not
much versed in these matters, accepted the Neapolitan sword instead of
the French one. I had not touched one these eight years. At all events,
my antagonist was an expert swordsman,--I suspect, in this style of
fencing, more than my equal; he certainly was cooler, and took a thrust
I gave him through the fore-arm without ever owning he was wounded till
he saw me fall.'

"'Plucky fellow,' muttered I.

"'Yes, pluck he has, unquestionably; nor did he behave badly when all
was over, for though it was as much as his neck was worth to do it, he
offered to support me in the carriage all the way back to Naples.'

"'That was a noble offer,' said I.

"'And there never was a less noble antagonist!' cried Maitland, with
a bitter laugh. 'Indeed, if it ever should get abroad that I crossed
swords with him, it would go near to deny me the power of demanding a
similar satisfaction from one of my own rank to-morrow. Do not ask me
who he is, Lyle; do not question me about the quarrel itself. It is the
thinking, the brooding over these things as I lie here, that makes
this bed a torture to me. The surgeon and his probes are not pleasant
visitors, but I welcome them when they divert my thoughts from these
musings.'

"I did my best to rally him, and get him to talk of the future, when
he should be up and about again. I almost thought I had done him some
little good, when Caffarelli came in to warn me that the doctors were
imperative against his receiving any visitors, and I had been there then
full two hours!

"'I have tol