You may do that, Mr.Caryll.For my own sake, let me add, I hope you will not do it." "I am not thinking of your grace at all," said Mr.Caryll, slightly piqued by the tone the other took with him.

"But to relieve your mind of such doubts as I see you entertain, I can assure you that it is out of no motives of weakness that I boggle at this combat.

Though I confess that I am no ferrailleur, and that I abhor the duel as a means of settling a difference just as I abhor all things that are stupid and insensate, yet I am not the man to shirk an encounter where an encounter is forced upon me.

But in this affair--" he paused, then ended--"there is more than meets your grace's eye, or, indeed, anyone's." He was so calm, so master of himself, that Wharton perceived how groundless must have been his first notion.

Whatever might be Mr.
Caryll's motives, it was plain from his most perfect composure that they were not motives of fear.