urence Fitzgibbon had held their meeting, and at this meeting
Laurence had taken certain standing-ground on behalf of his friend,
and in obedience to his friend's positive instruction;--which was
this, that his friend could not abandon his right of addressing the
young lady, should he hereafter ever think fit to do so. Let that
be granted, and Laurence would do anything. But then that could not
be granted, and Laurence could only shrug his shoulders. Nor would
Laurence admit that his friend had been false. "The question lies in
a nutshell," said Laurence, with that sweet Connaught brogue which
always came to him when he desired to be effective;--"here it is. One
gentleman tells another that he's sweet upon a young lady, but that
the young lady has refused him, and always will refuse him, for ever
and ever. That's the truth anyhow. Is the second gentleman bound by
that not to address the young lady? I say he is not bound. It'd be a
d----d hard tratement, Captain Colepepper, if a man's mouth and all
the ardent affections of his heart were to be stopped in that manner!
By Jases, I don't know who'd like to be the friend of any man if
that's to be the way of it."

Captain Colepepper was not very good at an argument. "I think they'd
better see each other," said Colepepper, pulling his thick grey
moustache.

"If you choose to have it so, so be it. But I think it the hardest
thing in the world;--I do indeed." Then they put their heads together
in the most friendly way, and declared that the affair should, if
possible, be kept private.

On the Thursday night Lord Chiltern and Captain Colepepper went over
by Calais and Lille to Bruges. Laurence Fitzgibbon, with his friend
Dr. O'Shaughnessy, crossed by the direct boat from Dover to Ostend.
Phineas went to Ostend by Dover and Calais, but he took the day
route on Friday. It had all been arranged among them, so that there
might be no suspicion as to the job in hand. Even O'Shaughnessy and
Laurence Fitzgibbon had left London by separate trains. They met on
the sands at Blankenberg about nine o'clock on the Saturday morning,
having reached that village in different vehicles from Ostend and
Bruges, and had met quite unobserved amidst the sand-heaps. But one
shot had been exchanged, and Phineas had been wounded in the right
shoulder. He had proposed to exchange another shot with his left
hand, declaring his capability of shooting quite as well with the
left as with the right; but to