including two Honourable Miss
Trafficks, and a couple of young men out of the City, whom Lady
Tringle hoped might act as antidotes to Houston and Hamel. But with
none of them would Tom associate. With Captain Batsby he did form
some little intimacy; driven to it, no doubt, by a community of
interest. "I believe you were acquainted with my cousin, Miss Dormer,
at Stalham?" asked Tom. At the moment the two were sitting over the
fire in the housekeeper's room, and Captain Batsby was smoking a
cigar, while Tom was sucking an empty pipe.

"Oh, yes," said Captain Batsby, pricking up his ears, "I saw a good
deal of her."

"A wonderful creature!" ejaculated Tom.

"Yes, indeed!"

"For a real romantic style of beauty, I don't suppose that the world
ever saw her like before. Did you?"

"Are you one among your cousin's admirers?" demanded the Captain.

"Am I?" asked Tom, surprised that there should be anybody who had
not as yet heard his tragic story. "Am I one of her admirers?
Why,--rather! Haven't you heard about me and Stubbs?"

"No, indeed."

"I thought that everybody had heard that. I challenged him, you
know."

"To fight a duel?"

"Yes; to fight a duel. I sent my friend Faddle down with a letter to
Stalham, but it was of no use. Why should a man fight a duel when he
has got such a girl as Ayala to love him?"

"That is quite true, then?"

"I fear so! I fear so! Oh, yes; it is too true. Then you know;"--and
as he came to this portion of his story he jumped up from his chair
and frowned fiercely;--"then, you know, I met him under the portico
of the Haymarket, and struck him."

"Oh,--was that you?"

"Indeed it was."

"And he did not do anything to you?"

"He behaved like a hero," said Tom. "I do think that he behaved like
a hero,--though of course I hate him." The bitterness of expression
was here very great. "He wouldn't let them lock me up. Though, in
the matter of that, I should have been best pleased if they would
have locked me up for ever, and kept me from the sight of the world.
Admire that girl, Captain Batsby! I don't think that I ever heard of
a man who loved a girl as I love her. I do not hesitate to say that I
continue to walk the world,--in the way of not committing suicide, I
mean,--simply because there is still a possibility while she has not
as yet stood at the hymeneal altar with another man. I would have
shot Stubbs willingly, though I knew I was to be tried for it at the
Old Bailey,--an