And then another remembrance, which only a sleeping-draught had kept at bay, darted upon him like a panther on its prey.
He had drawn the short lighter.
He started violently, and then fell back trembling.
"Oh, my God!" he said, involuntarily.
He lay still, telling himself that this dreadful nightmare would pass, would fade in the light of common day.
His servant came in noiselessly with a cup of coffee and a little sheaf of letters.
He pretended to be asleep; but when the man had gone he put out his shaking hand for the coffee and drank it.
The mist before his mind gradually lifted.

Gradually, too, the horror on his face whitened to despair, as a twilight meadow whitens beneath the evening frost.

He had drawn the short lighter.

Nothing in heaven or earth could alter that fact.
He did not stop to wonder how Lord Newhaven had become aware of his own dishonor, or at the strange weapon with which he had avenged himself.

He went over every detail of his encounter with him in the study.