The agitation of spirits into which I was thrown by this interview with the Doctor, blinded me for the moment to the fact that Harry Temple, of whose pretensions I thought I had disposed, was still an angry and rejected suitor. Indeed, for a few days he had ceased to persecute me. But to-night he manifested a jealousy which was inexcusable, after all I had said to him. No one, as I had gone so far as almost to explain to him, had a better right to give me his hand for the evening than my lord; yet this young man, as jealous as the blacksmith god whom he personated, must needs cross our steps at every turn, throwing angry glances both upon me and my partner. He danced with no one; he threw away his hammer, left off limping, consorted with none of the gay company, but nursed his wrath in silence.

Now the last dance of the evening, which took place at two o’clock in the morning, was to be one in which all the ladies threw their fans upon the table, and the gentlemen danced each with her whose fan he picked from the pile. My lord whispered to me that I was first to let him see my fan, whereupon, when the fans lay upon the table, he deliberately chose my own and brought it to me.

I took off my domino, which was now useless, because all the company knew the disguise. Everybody laughed, and we took our places to lead off the country-dance.

It was three o’clock when we finished dancing and prepared to go home.

Harry Temple here came up to me and asked if he might have the honour of escorting me to my lodgings. I answered that I had already promised that favour to Lord Chudleigh.

“Every dance, the whole evening: the supper, the promenade: all given to this happy gentleman! Surely, Kitty, the Queen of the Wells might dispense her favours more generously.”

“The Queen,” said Lord Chudleigh, “is the fountain of honour. We have only to accept and be grateful.”

I laughed and bade Harry good-night, and offered him my hand, which he refused sullenly; and murmuring something about pride and old friends, turned aside and let us go.

Everybody, it seems, noticed the black looks of Harry Temple all the evening, and expected, though in my happiness I thought not of such a thing, that high words would pass between this sulky young gentleman and his favoured rival, to whom he was so rude and unmannerly. Now, by the laws of the Wells, as laid down strictly in the rules of the great Mr. Nash for Tunbridge Wells and Bath, and adopted at all watering-places, the gentlemen wore no swords on the Parade and in the card-rooms; yet it was impossible to prevent altogether the quarrels of hot-blooded men, and the green grass of the Downs had been stained with the blood of more than one poor fellow, run through as the consequence of a foolish brawl. When will men cease to fight duels, and seek to kill each other for a trifling disagreement, or a quarrel?

Generally, it takes two to make a quarrel, and few men are so perverse as deliberately to force a duel upon another against his will. Yet this was what Harry Temple, my old schoolfellow, my old friend, of whom I once held so high an opinion, so great a respect, actually did with Lord Chudleigh. He forced the quarrel upon him. My lord was always a gentleman of singular patience, forbearance, and sweetness, and one who would take, unprovoked, a great deal of provocation, never showing the usual sign of resentment or anger, although he might be forced to take up the quarrel. He held, indeed, the maxim that a man should always think so well of himself as to make an insult impossible, unless it be deliberate, open, and clearly intended. As for his courage, he went on to say that it was a matter of self-respect: if a man’s own conscience approve (which is the ultimate judge for all but those whose consciences are deadened by an evil life), let him fear not what men say, knowing full well that if they dare say more than the customs of the polite world allow, it is easy for every man to prove that he is no coward.

Lord Chudleigh, then, having led us to the door of our own lodging, unfortunately returned to the Assembly Rooms, where—and outside upon the Terrace—some of the gentlemen yet lingered. I say unfortunately, because, as for what followed, I cannot believe but that poor Harry, whose disposition was not naturally quarrelsome, might have been inflamed by drinking wine with them when he ought to have gone to bed. Now wine, to one who is jealous, is like oil upon fire. And had my lord, for his part, retired to Durdans—as he might very properly have done, seeing the lateness of the hour—the morning’s reflection would, I am sure, have persuaded Harry that he had been a fool, and had no reasonable ground for quarrel with his lordship or with me.

The sun was already rising, for it was nearly four o’clock in the morning; the ladies were all gone off to bed; those who lay about the benches yawned and stretched themselves; some were for bed, some for another bottle; some were talking of an early gallop on the Downs; the lamps yet glimmered in their sockets; the Terrace looked, with its oil lamps still burning in the brightness of the morning sunshine, with the odds and ends of finery, the tattered bravery of torn dresses, gold and silver lace, tinfoil, broken paper crowns and helmets, as sad as a theatre the morning after a performance; the stalls of the Wizard, the Italian performers, and the dancing girl, were empty and open; their hangings were already torn down, the stand for the horses beside the pond was broken in parts.

When Lord Chudleigh came back he found waiting for him, among the latest of the revellers, Harry Temple, his face pale, his lips set, his manner agitated, as of one who contemplates a rash act.

My lord threw himself upon a bench under the trees, his head upon his hand, pensive, thinking to calm the agitation of his spirits by the freshness of the morning air. Harry began walking up and down in front of him, casting angry glances at him, but as yet speaking not. Now, within the deserted card-room when the lights had all burned out, and the windows were wide open, sat all by himself Sir Miles Lackington, turning over a pack of cards at one of the empty tables, and thinking over the last night’s play, at which he had won some money, and regretted to have been stopped just when he was in luck. There were now only a few gentlemen left, and these were one by one dropping off.

Presently, with an effort, Harry Temple stopped in front of his lordship and spoke to him.

I declare that up to this time poor Harry had always been the most peaceful of creatures, though strong, and well accustomed to hold bouts with Will, in which he proved almost equal to that stalwart competitor, at wrestling, singlestick, quarterstaff, or boxing. Also, as was proved by the affray of the Saturday evening, already related, not unready on occasion. But a bookish youth, and not one who sought to fix quarrels upon any man, or to commit murder in the name of honour. And this shows how dangerous a passion is thwarted love, which can produce in a peaceful man’s bosom jealousy, hatred, rage, and forgetfulness of that most sacred commandment which enjoins us not to slay.

“I trust, my lord,” he said, laughing and blushing, as if uncertain of himself, “that your lordship hath passed a pleasant evening with the Queen of the Wells.”

Lord Chudleigh looked up, surprised. Then he rose, for there was a look in Harry’s eyes which meant mischief. The unlucky love-sick swain went on—

“Lord Chudleigh and Miss Kitty Pleydell. The very names seem made for one another; no doubt his lordship is as fine a gentleman as the lady is beautiful.”

“Sir!” said Lord Chudleigh quietly, “you have perhaps been drinking. This is the only excuse for such an association of my name with that young lady’s in a public assembly.”

“Oh!” he said, “I want no excuse for addressing your lordship. The Temples were gentlefolk before the Chudleighs were heard of.”

“Well, Mr. Temple, so be it. Enjoy that superiority. Shall we close this discussion?”

“No, my lord; there is more to be said.”

He spoke hotly, and with an anger which ought surely to have been simulated, such small provocation as he had received.

“Then, sir, in Heaven’s name, let us say it and have done with it.”

“You have offended me, my lord—you best know how.”

“I believe I know, Mr. Temple. You also know what grounds you have for believing that to be an offence.”

“I say, my lord,” his voice rose and his eyes flashed, “that you have offended me.”

“Had I done so wittingly,” returned Lord Chudleigh, “I should willingly ask pardon. But I deny your right to take offence.”

“You have offended me highly,” he repeated, “and that in a manner which makes an apology only a deeper insult. You have offended me in a manner which only one thing can satisfy.”

“Before we go any farther, Mr. Temple,” said my lord, sitting down again calmly and without heat, “I would know exactly the nature of my offence, and your reasonable right to regard it as such.”

“It needs not, my lord. You know well enough what I mean.”

“I know that, of course; I would wish to know, as well, your right to be offended.”

“I say, my lord, that it is enough.”

Harry, being in the wrong, spoke still more loudly, and those who were left drew near to see the quarrel.

“You need not raise your voice, sir,” said Lord Chudleigh; “I like any altercation in which I may be unhappily engaged to be conducted like the rest of my business in life, namely, with the decorum and quietness which become gentlemen like the Temples, and those of that younger family the Chudleighs. You have, I believe, travelled. You have, therefore, without doubt, had opportunities of observing the well-bred and charming quietness with which gentlemen in France arrange these little matters, particularly when, as now, the dispute threatens to involve the name of a lady. Now, sir, that we understand each other, I must inform you that unless I know the exact nature of my offence to you, which I have the right to demand, this affair will proceed no further. I would as soon accept a quarrel from a mad Malay running amuck at all he meets.”

“My lord!” cried Harry, with red face and trembling fingers.

“Of course I do not pretend to be unable to form a guess,” Lord Chudleigh went on gravely; “but I must beg you to instruct me exactly what you mean. You will observe, sir, that I am here, as a visitor, previously unknown to yourself. It is therefore strange to learn that one has offended a gentleman towards whom my behaviour has been neither less nor more guarded than towards others.”

“My lord, you have offended me by the attentions you have paid to a young lady.”

“Indeed, sir! So I believed. But permit me to ask if the young lady is connected with you or with your house by any ties of relationship or otherwise?”

“She is not, my lord.”

“Further: have you any right of guardianship over this young lady?”

“None, my lord. But yet you have offended me.”

“The young lady is free to accept the attention of any man she may prefer; to show her preference as openly as she considers proper. I conclude this to be the case. And, if so, I am unable to perceive in what way I can wilfully have offended you.”

“Your lordship,” said Harry Temple, enraged by his adversary’s calmness, but yet with sufficient self-command to speak in lower tones, “has offended me in this: that if you had not paid those attentions to Miss Pleydell, she might have accepted those courtesies which I was prepared to offer her.”

“Indeed, sir! that is a circumstance with which I am wholly unconcerned. No doubt the same thing might be said by other gentlemen in this company.”

“I knew that young lady, my lord, long before you did. It was my deliberate purpose, long ago, to make her my wife when the opportunity arrived——”

“The time has come,” resumed Lord Chudleigh, “but not the man——”

“I say, it was my fixed intention to marry Miss Pleydell. I did not, my lord, form these resolutions lightly, nor abandon them without sufficient reason. It is still my resolution. I say that you shall not stand between me and my future wife!”

“Indeed! But suppose Miss Pleydell refuses to give her consent to this arrangement? Surely such a resolve, however laudable, demands the consent of the other party.”

“Miss Pleydell will not refuse my hand when you have left her. Abandon a field, my lord, which never belonged to yourself——”

“Tut, tut!” said Lord Chudleigh. “This, sir, is idle talk. You cannot seriously imagine——”

“I seriously imagine that, if necessary, I will make my way to that young lady over your lordship’s body, if you stand in my way.”

Lord Chudleigh took off his hat and bowed low.

“Then, sir, the sooner you take the first step in the pursuance of your resolution the better. I will bar your way upon the Downs at any time you may appoint.”

Harry returned the obeisance.

“I wait your lordship’s convenience,” he said.

“My convenience shall be yours, Mr. Temple. For it is you who desire to run me through, not I you. Have your own way.”

“It is late to-night,” said Harry, now quite calm, though with a hot flush upon his cheek. “Your lordship would like to rest. Perhaps to-morrow, after breakfast, while the ladies are at morning prayer.”

Oh, the bloodthirsty wretch!

Lord Chudleigh bowed again.

“That time, Mr. Temple, will I dare say suit the convenience of my second.”

The code of honour, be it observed, does not allow the exhibition of any emotion of horror, remorse, or repugnance, when you arrange to commit that private murder which gentlemen call a duel.

Lord Chudleigh bowed once more, and left his adversary. He walked across the Terrace to the card-room, where Sir Miles was alone with the scattered packs of cards. When he came out, he bowed a third time, and walked slowly away. I hope that, in his own chamber, he reflected on the wickedness of the appointment he had made, and on its possible consequences.

Sir Miles threw away the cards, and came out rubbing his eyes.

“Ods my life, sir!” he said, addressing Harry Temple, who, now that the mischief was done, looked somewhat sheepish, though dignified.

The few gentlemen who were left drew nearer, anxious to lose nothing of what might happen. English people of all ranks love above all things to watch a quarrel or a fight, whatever be the weapons.

“Ods my life, sir!” repeated Sir Miles. “This is a pretty kettle of fish! Here we have all spent a pleasant night—dancing, playing, and making love, every one happy, even though some gentlemen did lose their mistresses or their money, and here you spoil sport by quarrelling at the end of it. What the Devil, sir, does it concern you whether my lord talks gallantry with one young lady or another?”

“That, Sir Miles, allow me to tell you, is my business. If you are his lordship’s second, let us arrange accordingly. If a principal, let us fight afterwards.”

“No, sir,” replied the baronet. “It is everybody’s business. It concerns the cheerfulness, the security, the happiness of all this honourable company. What! if I amuse myself, and a young lady too, by writing poems on her dainty fingers, must I needs go out and measure swords with every young hot-head who would fain be doing the same? Seconds and principals? Have we nothing to do but to fight duels? Mr. Temple, I thought better things from a gentleman of your rank and family. What! any jackanapes lawyer—any pert young haberdasher—might think it fine thus to insult and challenge a harmless nobleman of great name and excellent qualities! But for you, Mr. Temple! you, sir, a gentleman of your county, and of ancient and most honourable stock——Fie, sir, fie!”

“I think, Sir Miles,” said Harry, who wished now to have the preliminaries settled without more ado, “that things having so far advanced, these reproaches may be spared. Let us proceed to business.”

“A girl can choose, I suppose,” Sir Miles went on, “without the interference or the objection of a man who is neither her father, her guardian, her brother, nor her cousin? Why, as for this young lady, whose name, I say, it is not respectful to name in this business—I myself, sir, I myself paid her attentions till she bade me go about my business. What, sir! do you think I should have suffered any man to question my right to make a Lady Lackington where I choose, and where I could! She laughed in my face. Mighty pretty laughing lips she has, and teeth as white as pearls; and a roguish eye when she chooses, for all she goes so grave. Did I, then, go snivelling in the dumps? Did I take it ill that she showed a liking for Lord Chudleigh, who is worth ten of me, and a dozen of you? Did I hang my chops and wipe my eyes? Did I, therefore, insult his Lordship, and call him out?”

“All this, Sir Miles,” Harry replied impatiently, “has nothing to do with the question which lies between Lord Chudleigh and myself.”

“What I argued, for my own comfort, when sweet Kitty said me nay, was this: that the marriage condition hath many drawbacks, as is abundantly evident from history and poetry, while freedom hath many sweets—that a man may tire of a Beauty and a Toast in a month, but he never tired of liberty—that children often come after matrimony, and they are expensive—that, as for the lady’s good looks, why, as many pretty women are in the sea as ever came out of it. And as for my wounded feelings, why, what is it but so much vanity? Granted that she is the Toast this year: prithee who will be the Toast next? Last year, they tell me, it was Peggy Baker—and a monstrous pretty woman, too, though not to compare with Kitty. Now her nose is out of joint. Who next? Some little miss now getting rapped over the knuckles in the nursery, Mr. Temple; and she will be, in her turn, quite as fine a woman as we shall live to see. That is to say, as I shall live to see, because you, of course, will be no more. At eleven o’clock upon the Downs you will get your quietus; when my lord’s sword has once made daylight through your fine waistcoat. ’Tis pity, but yet what help? Mighty little looking after pretty women where you are going to, Mr. Temple. I advise you to consider your earthly concerns before you go out. Well, ’tis a shame, it is, a well-set-up man like you, with a likely face and pretty fortune, to throw all away because a woman says nay:

Tilly vally! A pretty reason why two tall fellows should stick swords into each other. I have a great mind, sir, not to allow my principal to go out on such a provocation.”

“I can easily give him more, Sir Miles,” said Harry hotly, “or you either, as soon as you have finished your sermon.”

“Oh, sir!” Sir Miles laughed and bowed. “Pray do not think that I desire to fight on that or any other provocation. We gentlemen of Norfolk sometimes try conclusions with the cudgel before the rapier comes into play. Therefore, sir, having given you my mind on the matter, and having nothing more to say at this moment, you may as well refer me at once to your friend.”

Harry turned to the group of lookers-on.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “an unhappy difference, as some of you have witnessed, has arisen between the Lord Chudleigh and myself. May I request the good offices of one among you in this affair?”

One of them, an officer in the king’s scarlet, stepped forward and offered his services. Harry thanked him, briefly told him where he lodged, introduced him formally to Sir Miles, and walked away. A few minutes’ whispered consultations between Sir Miles and this officer concluded the affair. The principals were to fight on the Downs at eleven o’clock, when there are generally, unless a match is going on, but few people up there. This arranged, Sir Miles walked away to tell Lord Chudleigh; and Harry, with his second, left the Terrace.

Thus the affair, as gentlemen call an engagement in which their own lives and the happiness of helpless women are concerned, was quietly arranged on the well-known laws of “honour,” just as if it were nothing more than the purchase of a horse, a carriage, or a house; we at home sleeping meanwhile without suspicion, dreaming, very likely, of love and joy, even when death was threatening those dearest to us. Sometimes when I think of this uncertain life, how it is surrounded by nature with unknown dangers—how thoughtless and wicked men may in a moment destroy all that most we love—how in a moment the strongest fortune is over-thrown—how our plans may be frustrated—how the houses of cards (which we have thought so stable) tumble down without a warning, and all our happiness with them—when, I say, I think of these things I wonder how any one can laugh and be merry, save the insensate wretches whose whole thought is of their own enjoyment for the moment. Yet the Lord, our Father, is above all; in whose hand is the ordering of the smallest thing—the meanest life. Moreover, He hath purposed that youth should be a time of joy, and so hath wisely hidden away the sources of evil.

Cicely Crump was stirring betimes in the morning, and before six was in the market buying the provisions for the day. And as she passed the door of the Assembly Rooms, she looked in to see the dipper, a friend of hers, who sat at the distribution of the water, though but few of the visitors took it regularly. This good woman, Phoebe Game by name, had kept the secret for more than an hour, having heard it, under promise of strictest secrecy, from one of the late revellers when she took her place among the glasses at five o’clock in the morning. She was a good woman and discreet according to her lights; but this dreadful secret was too much for her, and if she had not told it to Cicely, must have told it to some one else. At sight of her visitor, therefore, discretion abandoned this good woman, and she babbled all she knew. Yet not in a hurry, but little by little, as becomes a woman with such a piece of intelligence, the parting of which is as the parting with power.

“Cicely,” she said, shaking her forefinger in an awful and threatening way, “I have heard this very morning—ah! only an hour or so since—news which would make your poor young lady jump out of her pretty shoes for fright. I have—I have.”

“Goodness!” cried Cicely. “Oh, Phoebe! whatever in the world is it?”

“I dare not tell,” she replied. “It is as much as my place is worth to tell. We dippers are not like common folk. We must have no ears to hear and no tongue to speak. We must listen and make no sign. The quality says what they like and they does what they like. It isn’t for a humble dipper to speak, nor to tell, nor to spoil sport—even if it is murder.”

“Oh, tell me!” cried Cicely. “Why, Phoebe, your tongue can run twenty to the dozen if you like. And if I knew, why there isn’t a mouse in all Epsom can be muter, or a guinea-pig dumber. Only you tell me.”

Thus appealed to, Mrs. Game proceeded (as she had from the first intended) to transfer her secret to Cicely, with many interjections, reflections, sighs, prayers, and injunctions to tell no one, but to go home and pray on her bended knees that Lord Chudleigh’s hand might be strengthened and his eye directed, so that this meddlesome young gentleman might be run through in some vital part.

Cicely received the intelligence with dismay. The good girl had more of my confidence than most ladies give to maids: but she was above the common run and quick of apprehension. Besides, she loved me.

“What use,” she asked bitterly, “for Mr. Nash to prohibit the gentlemen from wearing their swords when they have got them at home ready for using when they want? Mr. Temple, indeed! To think that my young lady would look at him when my lord is about!”

“Well—go, child,” said the dipper. “You and me, being two poor women with little but our characters, which are, thank the Lord, good so far as we have got, cannot meddle nor make in this pie. I am glad I told you, though. I felt before you came as if the top of my head was being lifted off with the force of it like a loaf with the yeast. Oh, the wickedness of gentlefolk!”

Cicely walked slowly back, thinking what she had best do—whether to keep the secret, or to tell me. Finally she resolved on telling me.

Accordingly she woke me up, for I was still asleep, and communicated the dreadful intelligence. There could be no doubt of its truth. Sir Miles, she told me, had expostulated with Harry Temple, who would hear no reason. They would meet to kill each other at eleven o’clock, when the ladies were at prayers, on the Downs behind Durdans.

I thanked her, and told her to leave me while I dressed; but not to awaken Mrs. Pimpernel, who would be the better for a long sleep after her late night, while I thought over what was to be done.

First of all I was in a mighty great rage with Harry; the rage I was in prevented me from doing what I ought to have done—viz., had I been in my right mind, I should have gone to him instantly, and then and there I should have ordered him to withdraw from the Wells. Should he refuse, I would have gone to Sir Robert, a Justice of the Peace, and caused the duel to be prevented.

I could find no excuse for Harry. Even supposing that his passion was so violent (which is a thing one ought to be ashamed of rather than to make a boast of it), was that any reason why my happiness was to be destroyed? Men, I believe, would like to carry off their wives as the Romans carried off the Sabine women, and no marriage feast would be more acceptable to their barbarous hearts than the one in which these rude soldiers celebrated this enforced union.

Cicely and I looked at each other. It was seven o’clock. The duel was to take place at eleven. Could I seek out Lord Chudleigh? No; his honour was concerned. Or Sir Miles? But the honest baronet looked on a duel as a necessity of life, which might happen at any time to a gentleman, though he himself preferred a bout with cudgels.

Presently Cicely spoke.

“I once heard,” she said, “a story.”

“Child, this is no time for telling stories.”

“Let me tell it first, Miss Kitty. Nay, it is not a silly story. A gentleman once had planned to carry off a great heiress.”

“What has that to do with Lord Chudleigh? He does not want to carry me off.”

“The gentleman was a wicked man and an adventurer. He only wanted the lady’s money. One of her friends, a woman it was, found out the plot. She wanted to prevent it without bloodshed, or murder, or duelling, which would have happened if it had been prevented by any stupid interference of clumsy men——”

“O Cicely! get on with the story.”

“She did prevent it. And how do you think?”

“How?”

Cicely ran and shut the door, which was ajar. Then she looked all about the room and under the bed.

“It was a most dreadful wicked thing to do. Yet to save a friend or a lover, I would even do it.”

“What was it, Cicely?”

“I must whisper.”

“Quick! give me my hood, child.”

She put it on and tied it with trembling fingers, because we were really going to do a most desperate thing.

“Is the house on the road, Cicely? Cannot he go by another way?”

“No; he cannot go by any other way.”

“Say not a word, Cicely. Let not madam think or suspect anything.”

On the road which leads from the town by a gentle ascent to the Downs, there stood (on the left-hand side going up) a large square house in red brick, surrounded by a high wall on which were iron spikes. The door of the wall opened into a sort of small lodge, and the great gates were strong, high, and also protected by iron spikes. I had often observed this house; but being full of my own thoughts, and not a curious person always wanting to discover the business of others, I had not inquired into the reason of these fortifications. Yet I knew that the house was the residence of a certain learned physician, Dr. Jonathan Powlett by name, who daily walked upon the Terrace dressed in black, with a great gold-headed cane and an immense full periwig. He had a room in one of the houses of the Terrace in which he received his patients, and he made it his business to accost every stranger on his arrival with the view of getting his custom. Thus he would, after inquiring after the stranger’s health, branch off upon a dissertation on the merits of the Epsom waters and an account of the various diseases, with their symptoms (so that timid men often fancied they had contracted these disorders, and ran to the doctor in terror), which the waters would cure. Mrs. Esther was pleased to converse with him, and I believe spent several guineas in consultations on the state of her health, now excellent.

I had never spoken to him except once, when he saluted me with a finely pompous compliment about youth and beauty, the twin stars of such a company as was gathered together at Epsom. “Yet,” he said, “while even the physician cannot arrest the first of these, the second may be long preserved by yearly visits to this invigorating spot, not forgetting consultations with scientific and medical men, provided they are properly qualified and hold the license of the College of Physicians, without which a so-called doctor is but a common apothecary, chirurgeon, or leech, fit only to blister and to bleed.”

I made my way to his house, hoping to catch him before he sallied forth in the morning. The place was, as I have said, hidden by high brick walls, and the gate was guarded by a lodge in which, after ringing a great bell, I found a man of rough and strong appearance, who asked me rudely what was my business.

I told him my business was with his master.

After a little demur, he bade me wait in the lodge while he went away, and presently returned with the doctor.

“My dear young lady,” he cried. “I trust there is nothing wrong with that most estimable lady, Mrs. Pimpernel?”

“Indeed, doctor,” I replied, “I come on quite a different errand. And my business is for your ear alone.”

Upon this he bade the fellow retire, and we were left alone in the little room of the lodge.

Then I exposed my business.

He looked very serious when he quite understood what I wanted him to do.

“It is very dangerous,” he said.

I then told him how it might be so managed as that there should be no danger in it at all. He thought for a little, and then he laughed to himself.

“But, madam,” he said, “suppose I do this for you safely and snugly. What reward am I to have for my trouble and risk?”

“What do you think the business is worth?”

He looked curiously in my face as if wondering how much he could safely say. Then he replied—

“I believe it is worth exactly twenty guineas.”

“I can spare no more than ten,” I replied.

“Well,” he said, “ten guineas is a trifle indeed for so great a risk and so great a service. Still, if no more is to be had, and to oblige so sweet a young lady——”

Here he held out a fat white hand, the fingers of which were curled as if from long habit in clutching guineas.

I gave him five as an instalment, promising him the other five when the job was done.

All being safely in train, I returned home to breakfast; but after breakfast I returned to the physician’s house, and sat down in the lodge, so placed that I could see without being seen, and looked down the road.

After the bell for morning prayers had stopped, I began to expect my friends. Sure enough the first who came into sight were my lord and Sir Miles, the former looking grave and earnest. A little while after them came a gentleman whom I knew to be one of the company at Epsom. He was alone. Now this was the most fortunate accident, because had the gentleman, who was none other than Harry’s second, accompanied his principal, my plot had failed. But fortunately (as I learned afterwards) they missed each other in the town, and so set off alone. This, at the time, I knew not, being ignorant of the laws of the duello. And last there came along Harry himself, walking quickly as if afraid of being late.

I gave a signal which had been agreed upon, and as he approached the house, the great gates were thrown open, and two strapping tall fellows, stepping quickly into the road, caught poor Harry (the would-be murderer) by the arms, ran a thick rope round him before he had time to cry out, and dragged him into the gates, so quickly, so strongly, and so resolutely, that he had not the least chance of making any resistance. Indeed, it was done in so workmanlike a fashion that it seemed as if the rogues had done the same thing dozens of times before.

Heavens! To think that a man brought up so virtuously as Harry Temple, a young man of such excellent promise, so great a scholar, and one who had actually studied Theology, and attended the lectures of a Lady Margaret Professor, should, under any circumstances of life, abandon himself to language so wicked and a rage so overwhelming. Nothing ever surprised me so much as to hear that gentle scholar use such dreadful language, as bad as any that I had ever heard in the Fleet Market.

Caught up in this unexpected way, with his arms tied to his sides, carried by two stout ruffians, Harry had, to be sure, some excuse for wrath. His wig had fallen to the ground, his face was red and distorted by passion, so that even I hardly knew him, when Doctor Powlett came out of his house and slowly advanced to meet him.

“Ay, ay, ay!” he asked slowly, wagging his head and stroking his long chin deliberately, in the manner of a physician who considereth what best treatment to recommend. “So this is the unfortunate young gentleman, is it? Ay, he looks very far gone. Nothing less, I fear, than Dementia acuta cum rabie violentÂ. Resolute treatment in such cases is the best kindness. You will take him, keepers, to the blue-room, and chain him carefully. Your promptitude in making the capture shall be rewarded. As for you, sir”—he shook his forefinger at the unlucky Harry as if he was a schoolmaster admonishing a boy—“as for you, sir, it is lucky, indeed, that you have been caught. You were traced to this town, where, I suppose, you arrived early this morning. Ha! I have known madmen to be run through their vitals by some gentlemen whom they have accosted; or smothered between mattresses—a reprehensible custom, because it deprives the physician of his dues—or brained with a cudgel. You are fortunate, sir. But have a care; this house is remarkable for its kindness to the victims of mania! but have a care.”

Here Harry burst into a fit of imprecations most dreadful to listen to.

“Anybody,” said the Doctor, “may swear in this house; a good many do: that often relieves a congested brain, and does no harm to me and my attendants. But disobedience or violence is punished by cold-water baths, by being held under the pump, by bread and water, and by other methods with which I hope you will not make yourself better acquainted. Now, keepers!”

For the truth is that the doctor kept a house for the reception of madmen and unhappy lunatics, and I had persuaded him to kidnap Harry—by mistake. In four-and-twenty hours, I thought, he would have time to repent. It was sad, however, to see a man of breeding and learning so easily give way to profane swearing, and it shows the necessity of praying against temptation. Women, fortunately, do not know how to swear. It was, I confess, impossible to pity him. Why, he was going up the hill and on to the Downs with no other object than to kill my lover!