I WROTE to you of death in fiction, and, if I now write of death in fact, it is partly to see how far you agree with an opinion that was lately expressed to me by a man who is himself literary, and whose business it is to know the public taste in works of fiction. We were discussing a book of short stories, and he spoke of the author’s success, and said he hoped we might have a further instalment of similar tales. I ventured to suggest that the public must be rather nauseated with horrors, with stories of blood and crime, even though they carried their readers into new surroundings, and introduced them to interesting and little-described societies. My companion said, “No, there need be no such fear; we like gore. A craving for horrors pervades all classes, and is not easily satisfied. Those who cannot gloat over the contemplation of carcasses and blood, revel in the sanguinary details which make them almost spectators in the real or imaginary tragedies of life. The newspapers give one, and some writers of fiction the other; there is a large demand for both, especially now that the circle of readers is so rapidly widening amongst a class that cannot appreciate refinements of style, and neither understands nor desires the discussion of abstract questions. Therefore give us,—not Light, but—Blood.”

I wonder what you think. If I felt you had a craving for horrors I could paint the pages scarlet; for I have been in places where human life was held so cheap that death by violence attracted little notice, where tragedies were of daily occurrence, and hundreds of crimes, conceived with fiendish ingenuity and carried out with every detail calculated to thrill the nerves and tickle the jaded palate of the most determined consumer of “atrocities,” lie hidden in the records of Courts of Justice and Police Offices. Any one who compares the feelings with which he throws aside the daily paper, as he leaves the Underground Railway, or even those with which he closes the shilling shocker in more favourable surroundings, with the sense of exaltation, of keen, pulse-quickening joy that comes to him after reading one page in the book of Nature—after a long look at one of its myriad pictures—would, I think, hesitate to confess to a great hankering for a perpetual diet of blood. It is not the dread of appearing to be dissipated, but the certainty that there is better health, and a far more intense pleasure, in the clear atmosphere of woods and hills, of river and sea, than in the shambles.

Sewers are a product of civilisation in cities, but they are not pretty to look at, and I cannot appreciate a desire to explore their darksome nastiness while we may, if we choose, remain in the light and air of heaven. London slums are daily and nightly the scenes of nameless horrors, but it may be doubted whether a faithful and minute description of them, in the form of cheap literature, does more good than harm.

That is by way of preface. What I am going to tell you struck me, because I question whether a tragedy in real life was ever acted with details that sound so fictional, so imaginary, and yet there was no straining after effect. It was the way the thing had to be worked out; and like the puzzles you buy, and waste hours attempting to solve, I suppose the pieces would only fit when arranged in the places for which they were designed by their Maker.

A long time ago there lived, in one of the principal cities of Italy, a certain marchese, married to a woman of great beauty and distinguished family. She had a lover, a captain of cavalry, who had made himself an Italian reputation for his success in love-affairs, and also in the duels which had been forced upon him by those who believed themselves to have been wronged. The soldier was a very accomplished swordsman and equally skilful with a pistol, and that is possibly the reason why the husband of the marchesa was blind to a state of affairs which at last became the scandal of local society. The marchesa had a brother, a leading member of the legal profession; and when he had unsuccessfully indicated to his brother-in-law the line of his manifest duty, he determined to himself defend his sister’s name, for the honour of an ancient and noble family. The brother was neither a swordsman nor a pistol-shot, and when he undertook to vindicate his sister’s reputation he realised exactly what it might cost him. The position was unbearable; the cafÉs were ringing with the tale; and, if her husband shirked the encounter, some man of her own family must bring the offender to book and satisfy the demands of public opinion.

Having made up his mind as to the modus operandi, the brother sought his foe in a crowded cafÉ, and in the most public manner insulted him by striking him across the face with his glove. A challenge naturally followed, and the choice of weapons was left with the assailant. He demanded pistols, and, knowing his own absolute inferiority, stipulated for special conditions, which were, that the combatants should stand at a distance of one pace only, that they should toss, or play a game of ÉcartÉ for the first shot, and that if the loser survived it, he should go as close to his adversary as he pleased before discharging his own weapon. Under the circumstances, the soldier thought he could hardly decline any conditions which gave neither party an advantage, but no one could be found to undertake the duties of second in a duel on such terms. Two friends of the principals agreed, however, to stand by with rifles, to see that the compact was not violated; and it was understood that they would at once fire on the man who should attempt foul play.

It was, of course, imperative that the proceedings should be conducted with secrecy, and the meeting was arranged to take place on the outskirts of a distant town, to which it was necessary to make a long night journey by rail. In the early dawn of a cold morning in March, the four men met in the cemetery of a famous monastery, that stands perched on a crag, overlooking the neighbouring city, and a wide vale stretching away for miles towards the distant hills. A pack of cards was produced, and, with a tombstone as a table, the adversaries played one hand at ÉcartÉ. The game went evenly enough, and rather slowly, till the brother marked four against his opponent’s three. It was then the latter’s deal; he turned up the king and made the point, winning the game. A line was drawn, the distance measured, the pistols placed in the duellists’ hands, and the two friends retired a few yards, holding their loaded rifles ready for use. The word was given, and the brother stood calmly awaiting his fate. The soldier slowly raised his pistol to a point in line with the other’s head, and, from a distance of a few inches, put a bullet through his brain, the unfortunate man falling dead without uttering a sound or making a movement.

The officer obtained a month’s leave and fled across the border into Switzerland, but, before the month was up, public excitement over the affair had waned, and the gossips were busy with a new scandal. Their outraged sense of propriety had been appeased by the sacrifice of the dead, and the novel and piquant circumstances which accompanied it. As for the intrigue which had led to the duel, that, of course, went on the same as ever, only rather more so.