" he went on in
stifled tones. "I shot her, and he carried her out,--not the
yellow-haired one, oh, no, but,--Did you see his face?" he hissed with a
look that made Harwin draw back at its fierceness. "But we shall be
even; we will fight." He sat a moment watching Harwin, and then went on:
"You will be interested in hearing that Mistress Archdale is engaged to
Lord Bulchester, my friend. Your doings, too. But you shall pay for
all," as Harwin stepped back in consternation. "Already, you see you've
begun, but this is not the end."

"Calm yourself," said Harwin laying his hand nervously on the other's
shoulder, "control yourself. This is very bad, if you're wounded."

"Control myself!" sneered Edmonson. "I never have done it in my life,
and I'm not likely to do it now at the command of a coward and a sneak.
Now will you fight with me?"

"Certainly. But I want to know why it is with you?"

Edmonson seemed about to shout his answer, then, recollecting where he
was, said with a passion more dreadful for its suppression, "Why?
Because but for you I should be in paradise now, and by reason of you I
am in----." Suddenly his speech was arrested by what seemed to him in
its vividness a vision rather than a remembrance. He was again one of
the gay carousers at the London inn, he was scoffing at Bulchester, and
drinking that frightful pledge to meet them all again in one hundred
years. Had he kept his appointment already? He would have a long while
to wait. The act had seemed to him nothing, the recollection of it now
made him shudder. All at once, the scene stood out to him in a lurid
light, and through this he seemed to see a horror in Elizabeth Royal's
face. For one moment the whirl of anguish and remorse blinded him. The
next, that Archdale pride, so grand in a worthy cause, so fatal when in
the hands of caprice and passion, was driving him on again. But as he
was about to speak, the surgeon's voice by his bed commanded him to
stop, for his own sake and for others. "Not another word," it said.
"One,--I must speak one," returned Edmonson. "Then I have done, I
promise you. Stand back and count off one minute." He leaned close to
Harwin as the doctor yielded. "I give you a chance of honorable duel,"
he said. "You'll take it, or there's no place on earth where my sword is
too short to reach you. You've taught me how to stab in the back; I
shall not forget it. But I give you your chance. You'll fight?"

"Yes."

"Weapons?"