Chapter II: Part 2

He thought of Lord Verney's olive face, and looked and glared at the hair again as if he disbelieved his senses. Red! Were there two of them, a black and a ruddy? Stay; oh! women were sly devils! Lord Verney was a blind. This, _this_ carrot Judas was the consoler! "There was a patch above the dimple at the corner of your lip. I dreamed I kissed it." Sir Jasper gave a sort of roar in his soul, which issued from his lips in a broken groan. The dimple and the patch! Ay, he had seen them! Only a few short hours ago he had thought to kiss that dimple with a husband's lordly pleasure, that dimple, set for another man!

"Blast them! blast them!" cried Sir Jasper and clenched his hands above his head. The world went round with him, and everything turned the colour of blood. The next instant he was cold again, chiding himself for his passion. He must be calm, calm, for his vengeance. This lock he must trace to its parent head, no later than to-night, if he had to scour the town. He sat down, stretched the fatal missive before him, and sat staring at it.

It was thus that a visitor, who was announced as Captain Spicer, presently found him. Captain Spicer was an elongated young gentleman, had a tendency to visual obliquity and was attired in the extreme of fashion. He minced forward, bowing and waving white hands with delicately crooked fingers.

His respects he presented to Sir Jasper. He had not up to this had the pleasure and honour of Sir Jasper's acquaintance, but was charmed of the opportunity--any opportunity which should afford him that pleasure and honour. Might he, might he? He extended a snuff-box, charmingly enamelled, and quivered it towards his host. Sir Jasper had risen stiffly, in his dull eye there was no response.

"You do not, then?" said Captain Spicer, himself extracting a pinch and inhaling it with superlative elegance and the very last turn of the wrist. "And right, my dear sir! A vicious habit. Yet positively," said he, and smiled engagingly, "without it, I vow, I could not exist from noon to midnight. But then it must be pure Macabaw. Anything short of pure Macabaw, fie, fie!"

Sir Jasper shook himself and interrupted with a snarl:

"To what, sir, do I owe the honour?"

"I come," said Captain Spicer, "of course you have guessed, from my Lord Verney. There was a trifle, I believe about--ha--the shape of his nether limbs. Upon so private a matter, sir, as his, ahem, nether limbs, a gentleman cannot brook reflection. You will comprehend that my Lord Verney felt hurt, Sir Jasper, hurt! I myself, familiar as I am with his lordship, have never ventured to hint to him even the name of a hosier, though I know a genius in that line, sir, a fellow who has a gift--a divine inspiration, I may say--in dealing with these intimate details! But Gad, sir, delicacy, delicacy!"

Sir Jasper, meanwhile, had lifted the letter from the table, and was advancing upon Captain Spicer, ponderingly looking from the lock of hair in his hand to that young gentleman's head, which, however, was powdered to such a nicety that it was quite impossible to tell the colour beneath.

"Sir," interrupted he at this juncture, "excuse me, but I should be glad to know if you wear your hair or a wig?"

Captain Spicer leaped a step back, and looked in amaze at the Baronet's earnest countenance.

"Egad!" thought he to himself, "Verney's in the right of it, the fellow's mad. Ha! ha!" said he aloud, "very good, Sir Jasper, very good. A little conundrum, eh? 'Rat me, I love a riddle." He glanced towards the door. Sir Jasper still advanced upon him as he retreated.

"I asked you, sir," he demanded with an ominous rise in his voice, "if you wore your own hair?" ("The fellow looks frightened," he argued internally--"'tis monstrous suspicious!")

"I," cried the Captain, with his back against the door fumbling for the handle as he stood. "Fie, fie, who wears a peruke now-a-days, unless it be your country cousin? He, he! How warm the night is!"

Sir Jasper had halted opposite to him and was rolling a withering eye over his countenance.

"His mealy face is so painted," said the unhappy baronet to himself, "that devil take him if I can guess the colour of the fellow." His hand dropped irresolute by his side.

Beads of perspiration sprang on Captain Spicer's forehead.

"If ever I carry a challenge to a madman again!" thought he.

"Your hair is very well powdered," said Sir Jasper.

"Oh, it is so, it is as you say--Poudre à la Maréchale, sir," said the Captain, while under his persevering finger the door-handle slowly turned. An aperture yawned behind him; in a twinkling his slim figure twisted, doubled, and was gone.

"Hey, hey!" cried Sir Jasper, "stop, man, stop, our business together has but just begun."

But Captain Spicer had reached the street-door.

"Look to your master," said he to the footman, "he is ill, very ill!"

Sir Jasper came running after him into the hall.

"Stop him, fools!" cried he to his servants, and then in the next breath, "Back!" he ordered. And to himself he murmured, "'Tis never he. That sleek, fluttering idiot never grew so crisp a curl nor wrote so sturdy a hand, no, nor kissed a dimple! _Kissed a dimple_! S'death!"

SCENE V

As he stood turning the seething brew of his dark thoughts, there came a pair of knowing raps upon the street-door, and in upon him strode with cheery step and cry the friends he was expecting.

"Ah, Jasper, lad," cried Tom Stafford, and struck him upon his shoulder, "lying in wait for us? Gad, you're a blood-thirsty fellow!"

"And quite right," said Colonel Villiers, clinking spurred legs, and flinging off a military cloak. "Zounds, man, would you have him sit down in his dishonour?"

Sir Jasper stretched a hand to each; and holding him by the elbows they entered his private apartment and closed the door with such carefulness that the tall footman had no choice but to take it in turns to listen and peep through the key-hole.

"Tom," said Sir Jasper, "Colonel Villiers, when I begged you to favour me with this interview, I was anxious for your services because, as I told you, of a strong suspicion of Lady Standish's infidelity to me. Now, gentlemen, doubt is no longer possible, I have the proofs!"

"Come, come, Jasper, never be down-hearted," cried jovial Tom Stafford. "Come, sir, you have been too fond of the little dears in your day not to know what tender yielding creatures they are. 'Tis their nature man; and then, must they not follow the mode? Do you want to be the only husband in Bath whose wife is not in the fashion? Tut, tut, so long as you can measure a sword for it and let a little blood, why, 'tis all in the day's fun!"

"Swords?" gurgled Colonel Villiers. "No, no, pistols are the thing, boy. You are never sure with your sword: 'tis but a dig in the ribs, a slash in the arm, and your pretty fellow looks all the prettier for his pallor, and is all the more likely to get prompt consolation in the proper quarter. Ha!"

"Consolation!" cried Sir Jasper, as if the word were a blow. "Ay, consolation! damnation!"

"Whereas with your bullet," said the Colonel, "in the lungs, or in the brain--at your choice--the job is done as neat as can be. Are you a good hand at the barkers, Jasper?"

"Oh, I can hit a haystack!" said Sir Jasper. But he spoke vaguely.

"I am for the swords, whenever you can," cried comely Stafford, crossing a pair of neat legs as he spoke and caressing one rounded calf with a loving hand. "'Tis a far more genteel weapon. Oh, for the feel of the blades, the pretty talk, as it were, of one with the other! 'Ha, have I got you now, my friend?'--'Ha, would you step between me and my wife? or my mistress? or my pleasure?'--as the case may be. 'Would you? I will teach you, sa--sa!' Now--now one in the ribs! One under that presuming heart! Let the red blood flow, see it drop from the steel: that is something like! Pistols, what of them! pooh! Snap, you blow a pill into the air, and 'tis like enough you have to swallow it yourself! 'Tis for apothecaries, say I, and such as have not been brought up to the noble and gentlemanly art of self-defence."

"Silence, Tom," growled the Colonel; "here is no matter for jesting. This friend of ours has had a mortal affront, has he not? 'Tis established. Shall he not mortally avenge himself upon him who has robbed him of his honour? That is the case, is it not? And, blast me, is not the pistol the deadlier weapon and therefore the most suited? Hey?"

Sir Jasper made an inarticulate sound that might have passed for assent or dissent, or merely as an expression of excessive discomfort of feeling.

"To business then," cried Colonel Villiers. "Shall I wait upon Lord Verney and suggest pistols at seven o'clock to-morrow morning in Hammer's Fields? That is where I generally like to place such affairs: snug enough to be out of disturbers' way, and far enough to warm the blood with a brisk walk. Gad, 'twas but ten days ago that I saw poor Ned Waring laid as neatly on his back by Lord Tipstaffe (him they call Tipsy Tip, you know) as ever it was done; as pretty a fight! Six paces, egad, and Ned as determined a dog as a fellow could want to second. 'Villiers,' said he, as I handed him his saw-handle, 'if I do not do for him, may he do for me! One of us must kill the other,' said he. 'Twas all about Mistress Waring, you know, dashed pretty woman! Poor Ned, he made a discovery something like yours, eh? Faith! ha, ha! And devil take it, sir, Tip had him in the throat at the first shot, and Ned's bullet took off Tipstaffe's right curl! Jove, it was a shave! Ned never spoke again. Ah, leave it to me; see if I do not turn you out as rare a meeting."

"But stay," cried Stafford, as Sir Jasper writhed in his arm-chair, clenched and unclenched furious hands and felt the curl of red hair burn him where he had thrust it into his bosom. "Stay," cried Stafford, "we are going too fast, I think. Do I not understand from our friend here that he called Lord Verney a rat? Sir Jasper is therefore himself the insulting party, and must wait for Lord Verney's action in the matter."

"I protest," cried the Colonel, "the first insult was Lord Verney's in compromising our friend's wife."

"Pooh, pooh," exclaimed Stafford, recrossing his legs to bring the left one into shapely prominence this time, "that is but the insult incidental. But to call a man a rat, that is the insult direct. Jasper is therefore the true challenger; the other has the choice of arms. It is for Lord Verney to send to our friend!"

"Sir!" exclaimed the Colonel, growing redder about the gills than Nature and port wine had already made him. "Sir, would you know better than I?"

"Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, sitting up suddenly, "as I have just told you, since I craved of your kindness that you would help me in this matter, I have made discoveries that alter the complexion of the affair very materially. I have reason to believe that if Lord Verney be guilty in this matter it is in a very minor way. You know what they call in France _un chandelier_. Indeed it is my conviction--such is female artfulness--that he has merely been made a puppet of to shield another person. It is this person I must find first, and upon him that my vengeance must fall before I can attend to any other business. Lord Verney indeed has already sent to me, but his friend, Captain Spicer, a poor fool (somewhat weak in the head, I believe), left suddenly without our coming to any conclusion. Indeed, I do not regret it--I do not seek to fight with Lord Verney now. Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, rising and drawing the letter from his breast--"gentlemen, I shall neither eat nor sleep till I have found out the owner of this curl!"

He shook out the letter as he spoke, and fiercely thrust the tell-tale love-token under the noses of his amazed friends. "It is a red-haired man, you see! There lives no red-haired man in Bath but him I must forthwith spit or plug lest the villain escape me!"

Colonel Villiers started to his feet with a growl like that of a tiger aroused from slumber.

"Zounds!" he exclaimed. "An insult."

"How!" cried Jasper, turning upon him and suddenly noticing the sandy hue of his friend's bushy eyebrows. "You, good God! You? Pooh, pooh, impossible, and yet.... Colonel Villiers, Sir!" cried Sir Jasper, in awful tones, "did you write this letter? Speak! Yes or no, man! Speak, or must I drag the words from your throat?"

Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled Colonel Villiers.

"Stafford, Stafford," he spluttered, "you are witness. These are gross affronts, affronts which shall be wiped out."

"Did you write that letter? Yes or no!" screamed Sir Jasper, shaking the offending document in the Colonel's convulsed countenance.

"I?" cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jasper's hand with a furious blow, "I? I write such brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now, damn you body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me such a question?"

"No," said Sir Jasper, "of course not! Ah, I am a fool, Villiers. Forgive me. There's no quarrel between us! No, of course it could not be you! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty years! Gad, I am going mad!"

"Why, man," said Stafford, as soon as he could speak for laughing, "Villiers has not so much hair on all his head as you hold in your hand there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with your wig, and let your bald pate proclaim its shining innocence."

The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this time black in the face. Panting as to breath, disjointed as to speech, his fury had nevertheless its well-defined purpose.

"I have been insulted, I have been insulted," he gasped; "the matter cannot end here. Sir Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red-haired man, sir. I shall send a friend to call upon you."

"Nay, then," said Sir Jasper, "since 'tis so between us I will even assure myself that Tom has spoken the truth and give you something to fight for!" He stretched out his hand as he spoke, and plucked the wig from Colonel Villiers' head.

Before him indeed spread so complete an expanse of hairless candour, that further evidence was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that lingered behind the Colonel's ears, if they had once been ruddy, shone now meekly silver in the candle-light.

"I thank you," said Sir Jasper, "that is sufficient. When you send your friend to call upon me, I shall receive him with pleasure." He handed back the Colonel's wig with a bow.

The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand instinctively fumbled for his sword. But remembering perhaps that this was eminently a case for pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, clapped it on defiantly, settled it with minute care, glared, wheeled round and left the room, muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous a nature as to defy recording.

Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another thought. He fell into his chair again and spread out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter.

"Confusion!" said he. Who can it be? "Tom, you scamp, I know your hair is brown. Thou art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if I do not kill him I shall go mad!"

Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears rolled from his eyes as he gasped:

"Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this is the best joke I have known for years. Oh, Lord, the bald head of him! Oh, Jasper, 'tis cruel funny! Stab me, sir, if I have known a better laugh these ten years!) Nay, nay, I will help thee. Come, there's his Lordship the Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, for I have seen him in the water. Gad, he was like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it be he, think you? They have a way, these divines, and Lady Standish has a delicate conscience. She would like the approval of the Church upon her deeds. Nay, never glare like that, for I will not fight you! Have you not got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! there is O'Hara, he is Irish enough and rake enough and red enough. Oh, he is red enough!"

"O'Hara," cried Sir Jasper, struck.

There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley in the hall, and the servant announced Mr. Denis O'Hara.

"Talk of the devil," said Stafford.

Sir Jasper rose from his armchair with the air of one whose enemy is delivered into his hands.

SCENE VI

The Honourable Denis O'Hara, son and heir of Viscount Kilcroney in the peerage of Ireland, entered with a swift and easy step, and saluted airily. He had a merry green eye, and the red of his crisp hair shone out through the powder like a winter sunset through a mist.

"Sir Jasper," said he, "your servant, sir. Faith, Tom, me boy, is that you? The top of the evening to ye."

Uninvited he took a chair and flung his careless figure upon it. His joints were loose, his nose aspired, his rich lace ruffles were torn, his handsome coat was buttoned awry; Irishman was stamped upon every line of him, from his hot red head to his slim alert foot; Irishman lurked in every rich accent of his ready tongue.

Sir Jasper made no doubt that now the Lothario who had poached on his preserves, had destroyed his peace, had devastated his home, was before him. He turned to Stafford and caught him by the wrist.

"Tom," whispered he, "you will stand by me, for by my immortal soul, I will fight it out to-night!"

"For God's sake, be quiet," whispered the other, who began to think that the jealous husband was getting beyond a joke. "Let us hear what the fellow has got to say first. The devil! I will not stand by to see you pink every auburn buck in the town. 'Tis stark lunacy."

"But 'tis you yourself," returned Sir Jasper, in his fierce undertone--"you yourself who told me it was he. See, but look at this curl and at that head."

"Oh, flummery!" cried Stafford. "Let him speak, I say."

"When you have done your little conversation, gentlemen," said Mr. O'Hara good-naturedly, "perhaps you will let me put in a word edgeways?"

Sir Jasper, under his friend's compelling hand, sank into a chair; his sinews well-nigh creaked with the constraint he was putting upon himself.

"I have come," said Denis O'Hara, "from me friend Captain Spoicer. I met him a whoile ago, fluttering down Gay Street, leaping like a hare with the hounds after him, by St. Patrick! 'You're running away from someone, Spoicer,' says I. And says he, 'I'm running away from that blithering madman Sir Jasper Standish.' Excuse me, Sir Jasper, those were his words, ye see."

"And what, sir," interrupted Sir Jasper in an ominous voice--"what, sir, may I ask, was your purpose in walking this way to-night?"

"Eh," cried the Irishman, "what is that ye say?"

"Oh, go on, O'Hara," cried Stafford impatiently, and under his breath to Standish, "Faith, Jasper," said he, "keep your manners, or I'll wash my hands of the whole matter."

"Oh, is that the way with him," said O'Hara, behind his hand to Stafford, and winked jovially. "Well, I was saying, gentlemen, that to see a man run, unless it be a Frenchman, is a thing that goes against me. 'Why, what did he do to you?' said I (meaning you, Sir Jasper). 'Oh,' says me gallant Captain, 'I went to him with a gentlemanly message from a friend and the fellow insulted me so grossly with remarks about my hair, that sure,' says he, 'tis only fit for Bedlam he is.' 'Insulted you,' says I, 'and where are you running to? To look for a friend, I hope,' says I. 'Insults are stinking things.' 'Sure,' says he, 'he is mad,' says he. 'Well, what matter of that?' says I. 'Sure, isn't it all mad we are more or less? Come,' says I, 'Spoicer, this will look bad for you with the ladies, not to speak of the men. Give me the message, me boy, and I will take it; and sure we will let Sir Jasper bring his keepers with him to the field, and no one can say fairer than that.'"

Sir Jasper sprang to his feet.

"Now, curse your Irish insolence," he roared; "this is more than I would stand from any man! And, if I mistake not, Mr. O'Hara, we have other scores to settle besides."

"Is it we?" cried O'Hara, jumping up likewise. "'Tis the first I've heard of them--but, be jabers, you will never find me behind hand in putting me foot to the front! I will settle as many scores as you like, Sir Jasper--so long as it is me sword and not me purse that pays them."

"Draw then, man, draw!" snarled Sir Jasper, dancing in his fury. He bared his silver-hilted sword and threw the scabbard in a corner.

"Heaven defend us!" cried Stafford, in vain endeavouring to come between the two.

"Sure, you must not contradict him," cried O'Hara, unbuckling his belt rapidly, and drawing likewise with a pretty flourish of shining blade. "'Tis the worst way in the world to deal with a cracked man. Sure, ye must soothe him and give in to him. Don't I know! Is not me own first cousin a real raw lunatic in Kinsale Asylum this blessed day? Come on, Sir Jasper, I'm yer man. Just pull the chairs out of the way, Tom, me dear boy."

"Now sir, now sir!" said Sir Jasper, and felt restored to himself again as steel clinked against steel. And he gripped the ground with his feet, and knew the joy of action.

"Well, what must be, must be," said Stafford philosophically, and sat across a chair; "and a good fight is a good fight all the world over! Ha! that was a lunge! O'Hara wields a pretty blade, but there is danger in Jasper's eye. I vow I won't have the Irish boy killed. Ha!" He sprang to his feet again and brandished the chair, ready to interpose between the two at the critical moment. O'Hara was as buoyant as a cork; he skipped backwards and forwards, from one side to another, in sheer enjoyment of the contest. But Sir Jasper hardly moved from his first position except for one or two vicious lunges. Stafford had deemed to see danger in his eye; there was more than danger--there was murder! The injured husband was determined to slay, and bided his time for the fatal thrust. The while, O'Hara attacked out of sheer lightness of heart. Now his blade grazed Sir Jasper's thigh; once he gave him a flicking prick on the wrist so that the blood ran down his fingers.

"Stop, stop," cried Stafford, running in with his chair, "Sir Jasper's hit!"

"No, dash you!" cried Sir Jasper. And click, clank, click, it went again, with the pant of the shortening breath, and the thud of the leaping feet. Sir Jasper lunged a third time, O'Hara waved his sword aimlessly, fell on one knee, and rolled over.

"Halt!" yelled Stafford. It was too late. Sir Jasper stood staring at his red blade.

"You have killed him!" cried Stafford, turning furiously on his friend, and was down on his knees and had caught the wounded man in his arms the next second.

"Devil a bit," said O'Hara, and wriggled in the other's grasp, too vigorously indeed for a moribund, found his feet in a jiffy and stood laughing with a white face and looking down at his dripping shirt. "'Tis but the sudden cold feel of the steel, man! Sure I'm all right, and ready to begin again! 'Tis but a rip in the ribs, for I can breathe as right as ever." He puffed noisily as he spoke to prove his words, slapped his chest, then turned giddily and fell into a chair. Stafford tore open the shirt. It was as O'Hara had said, the wound was an ugly surface rip, more unpleasant than dangerous.

"Let us have another bout," said O'Hara.

"No, no," said Stafford.

"No, no," said Sir Jasper advancing and standing before his adversary. "No. Mr. O'Hara, you may have done me the greatest injury that one can do another, but gad, sir, you have fought like a gentleman!"

"Ah!" whispered O'Hara to Stafford, who still examined the wound with a knowing manner, "'tis crazed entoirely he is, the poor dear fellow."

"Not crazed," said Stafford rising, "or if so, only through jealousy.--Jasper, let us have some wine for Mr. O'Hara, and one of your women with water and bandages. A little sticking plaister will set this business to rights. Thank God, that I have not seen murder to-night!"

"One moment, Stafford." said Jasper, "one moment, sir. Let us clear this matter. Am I not right, Mr. O'Hara, in believing you to have written a letter to my wife?"

"Is it me?" cried O'Hara in the most guileless astonishment.

"He thinks you are her lover," whispered Stafford in his ear. "Zooks, I can laugh again now! He knows she has got a red-haired lover, and says he will kill every red-haired man in Bath!"

"Sure I have never laid eyes on Lady Standish," said O'Hara to Sir Jasper, "if that is all you want. Sure, I'd have been proud to be her lover if I'd only had the honour of her acquaintance!"

"Mr. O'Hara," said Sir Jasper, "will you shake hands with me?"

"With all the pleasure in loife!" cried the genial Irishman. "Faith, 'tis great friends we will be, but perhaps ye had better not introjuce me to ye'r lady, for I'm not to be trusted where the dear creatures are concerned, and so 'tis best to tell you at the outset."

The opponents now shook hands with some feeling on either side. The wound was attended to and several bottles of wine were thereafter cracked in great good-fellowship.

"There is nothing like Canary," vowed O'Hara, "for the power of healing."

* * * * *

It was past midnight when, on the arm of Mr. Stafford, Denis O'Hara set out to return to his own lodgings.

The streets were empty and the night dark, and they had many grave consultations at the street corners as to which way to pursue. If they reeled a little as they went, if they marched round King's Circus, and round again more than once, and showed a disposition to traverse Gay Street from side to side oftener than was really required by their itinerary, it was not, as O'Hara said, because of the Canary, but all in the way of "divarsion."

"Sir Jasper's a jolly good fellow," said Lord Kilcroney's heir as he propped himself against his own door-post, and waggled the knocker with tipsy gravity. "And so are you," said he to Stafford. "I like ye both." Here he suddenly showed a disposition to fall upon Stafford's neck, but as suddenly arrested himself, stiffened his swaying limbs and struck his forehead with a sudden flash of sobriety. "Thunder and 'ouns," said he, "if I did not clean forget about Spoicer!"

He was with difficulty restrained by Stafford (who, having a stronger head, was somewhat the soberer), with the help of the servants who now appeared, from setting forth to repair his negligence. By a tactful mixture of persuasion and force, the wounded gentleman was at length conducted to bed, sleepily murmuring:

"Won't do at all--most remiss--affair of honour--never put off!" until sleep overtook him, which was before his head touched the pillow.

Meanwhile Sir Jasper sat, with guttering candles all around him, in the recesses of an armchair, his legs extended straight, his bandaged wrist stuffed into his bosom, his head sunk upon his chest, his spurious flash of gaiety now all lost in a depth of chaotic gloom. Dawn found him thus. At its first cold rays he rose sobered, and could not have said whether the night had passed in waking anguish or in hideous nightmare. He looked round on the cheerless scene, the blood-stained linen, the empty wine-glasses with their sickening reek, the smoking candles, the disordered room; then he shuddered and sought the haven of his dressing-room, and the relief of an hour's sleep with a wet towel tied round his throbbing head.

SCENE VII

Mistress Bellairs was up betimes. In truth she had slept ill, which was a strange experience for her. What her thirty-seven lovers had never had the power to wring from her--a tear and a sleepless night--this had she given to the one man who loved her not.

She was tortured with anxiety concerning the danger which her caprice (or, as she put it, Lady Standish's inconceivable foolishness) might have brought upon Lord Verney. At daybreak she rang for her maid, and with the eight o'clock chocolate demanded to be posted with all the news of the town. She was of those who possess the talent of making themselves served. The chocolate was to the full as perfumed and creamy as ever, and Miss Lydia was bursting with tidings of importance, as she stood by her lady's couch.

"Well, Lydia, well?" cried her mistress, sharply.

"Oh, lud, ma'am, the whole town's ringing with it! My Lady Standish has been found out. There, I for one never trust those solemn prudes that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, and their mouths pursed like cherries. You would not be so proper if there was not a reason for it, I always think."

"Lydia," said Mistress Bellairs, "do not be a fool. Go on; what has Lady Standish been found out in, pray?"

"Oh, ma'am," said Lydia, "it ain't hard to guess. 'Tis what a woman's always found out in, I suppose. But, lud, the shamelessness of it! I hear, ma'am," she came closer to her mistress and bent to whisper, almost trembling with the joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, "I hear, ma'am, Sir Jasper found Colonel Villiers there yesterday afternoon. Oh, ma'am, such goings on!"

"Pshaw!" said Mistress Kitty.

"Well, they're going to fight, anyhow," cried the girl, "and Sir Jasper tore off the Colonel's wig and beat him about the face with it, ma'am, and the Colonel's been like a madman ever since, and he vows he will shoot him this morning."

Mistress Bellairs gave a sigh of relief.

"Let them shoot each other," said she, sinking back on her pillows and stirring her chocolate calmly. "I do not find the world any better for either of them."

"But that is not all, ma'am, for poor Sir Jasper no sooner had he thrashed the Colonel, than he finds Mr. Denis O'Hara behind the curtains."

"Denis O'Hara!" exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, sitting up in amaze. "You're raving!"

"No, ma'am, for I have it from Mr. O'Hara's own man; and did not he and Sir Jasper fight it out then and there, and was not Mr. O'Hara carried home wounded by the Watch!"

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the lady.

"And that is not all, ma'am," said the maid.

"You frighten me, child."

"There is Captain Spicer too, whom you can't a-bear, and Lord Verney."

"Lord Verney!" cried Mistress Kitty.

"Ay, ma'am; he and Sir Jasper are going to fight this morning. Sir Jasper's going to fight them all, but Lord Verney is to be the first, for Sir Jasper found him kissing Lady Standish yesterday at noon; the others were later on. So it's my Lord comes first you see, ma'am."

"La, girl," cried Mistress Bellairs with a scream, and upset her chocolate, "going to fight this morning? 'Tis not true!" Her pretty face turned as white as chalk under its lace frills.

"Yes, ma'am," pursued the maid, gabbling as hard as she could. "Yes, ma'am, first there's Lord Verney. Sir Jasper, they say, behaved so oddly to Captain Spicer who brought the first challenge, that Lord Verney sent another by a chairman this morning. And then Colonel Villiers. Of course, as Mr. Mahoney says (that's Mr. O'Hara's man, ma'am), Sir Jasper is safe to kill Lord Verney, and Colonel Villiers is safe to kill Sir Jasper. But if the Colonel do not kill Sir Jasper, then Sir Jasper will fight Captain Spicer! La! ma'am, the chocolate's all over the bed."

"Oh, get out of that, you silly wench," cried Mistress Bellairs, "let me rise! There is not a moment to lose. And where is Sir Jasper supposed to fight my Lord Verney? (Give me my silk stockings, useless thing that you are!) I don't believe a word of your story. How dare you come and tell me such a pack of nonsense? But where are they supposed to fight? Of course you must have heard the hour?" She was pulling silk stockings over her little arched foot, and up her little plump leg as fast as her trembling hands would obey her.

"I do not know where, ma'am," said the maid demurely, "but the Colonel is to meet Sir Jasper in Hammer's Fields at noon, so I suppose my Lord Verney and he will be fighting about this time."

"Oh, hold your tongue," cried her mistress; "you're enough to drive one mad with your quacking!"

Not a dab of rouge did the widow find time to spread upon pale cheeks, not a dust of powder upon a black curl. The pretty morning hood was drawn round a very different face from that which it usually shaded; but who shall say that Kitty, the woman, running breathless through the empty streets with the early breeze playing with her loose hair, was not as fair in her complete self-abandonment, as the fashionable lady, powdered, painted, patched and laced, known under the name of Mrs. Bellairs? Her small feet hammered impatiently along, her skirts fluttered as she went. She would not wait for a coach; a chair would have sent her crazy.

At the turning of the Crescent, another fluttering woman's figure, also hooded, also cloaked, also advancing with the haste that despises appearances, passed her with a patter and a flash. They crossed, then moved by the same impulse halted with dawning recognition.

"Mistress Bellairs!" cried Lady Standish's flute-like voice.

"Julia Standish!" screamed Mistress Bellairs. They turned and caught at each other with clinging hands.

"Oh, heavens," said Mistress Bellairs, "is what I hear true? Is that devil Sir Jasper going to fight Lord Verney this morning? Why, Verney's but a child; 'tis rank murder. You wicked woman, see what you have done!"

"Ah, Mistress Bellairs," cried Julia, and pressed her side, "my heart is broken."

"But what has happened, woman, what has happened?" cried Kitty, and shook the plaintive Julia with a fierce hand.

"Sir Jasper will not see me," sobbed Julia, "but I have found out that he is to meet my Lord Verney in an hour in Bathwick Meadows. There have been messages going backwards and forwards since early dawn. Oh, Heaven have pity on us!"

"Where are you going?" cried Kitty, and shook her once more.

"I was going to Lord Verney to plead for my husband's life," said Lady Standish, and the tears streamed down her face like the storm-rain upon lily flowers.

"The Lord keep you," cried Mistress Bellairs with feelings too deep for anger; "I believe you are no better than an idiot!"

The most heroic resolves are often the work of a second! "Now go back home again, you silly thing," said Kitty. "'Tis I--yes, Lady Standish, you do not deserve it of me--but I will sacrifice myself! I will prevent this duel, I will go to my Lord Verney!"

"You," said Julia, and wondered, and but half understood the meaning of the words.

"Go home, go home," said Mistress Kitty, "and I tell you that if I do not make Lord Verney fail at the meeting, my name is not Kitty Bellairs!"

Lady Standish hesitated, and meekly bowed her head, turned and began to retrace her steps, her slim figure bending and swaying as if the fresh morning wind were too stern for her.

Mistress Bellairs looked at her watch.

"Did she say an hour?" murmured she to herself. "Then, ten minutes before the looking-glass, and ten minutes to get to my Lord's lodgings, and I will find him about to start. 'Tis his first affair of honour, poor boy, and he is sure to be as early at it as a country cousin to a dinner-party."

The sun broke out from a cloudy sky, and Mrs. Bellairs shook herself and felt her spirits rise. A dimple peeped in either cheek.

"After all," said she as she tripped along, and the dimples deepened as the smile broadened, "who knows? 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good."

* * * * *

My Lady Standish returned home. The servants stared at her curiously as she crossed the hall. Mistress Tremlet, the housekeeper, passed her with pursed lips. Her own maid, she knew, was dissolved in tears and plunged in Doctor Persel's discourses against heresy. White as new fallen snow was her conscience, nevertheless she felt herself smirched in the eyes of all these people. Yet she cared not.

Outside Sir Jasper's dressing-room she listened. She could hear him stamp about as he made his toilet, and curse his man. She put out her hand to knock, but the memory of his stern repulse to her last appeal robbed her of all courage.

"I will not go in upon him," thought she, "but when he comes out I will speak."

"These swords," said Sir Jasper within, "I will take in the carriage. I expect Mr. Stafford and a friend to call for me in half-an-hour. Do you understand, sirrah! And hark ye, where are the pistols?"

"Pistols!" echoed Lady Standish, and her heart beat to suffocation.

There was a pause.

"Here, Sir Jasper," said the valet then.

"Now, mark what I say," said Jasper impressively. "Lord Markham will call at eleven. Let the curricle be in waiting; tell my Lord that I will meet him five minutes before the half-hour at Hammer's Fields. Forget at your peril! You are to take these pistols there yourself. Stay, tell my Lord Markham that if I am not at the _rendezvous_, 'twill only be because I have not life enough left to take me there, and he must make it straight with Colonel Villiers. Have you understood, rascal? Nay--damn you!--I will give you a letter for my Lord Markham."

"Oh God! oh God!" cried poor Lady Standish, and felt her knees tremble, "what is this now? Another meeting! The Colonel! ... In God's name how comes he upon Colonel Villiers? Why, this is wholesale slaughter! This is insanity! This must be prevented!" She caught her head in her hands. "Sir Jasper's mad," she said. "What shall I do? What shall I do? They will kill him, and I shall have done it. Why now, if Kitty prevents the first duel, cannot I prevent the second? Oh, I am a false wife if I cannot save my husband. Heaven direct me!" she prayed, and to her prayer came inspiration.

There was the Bishop, the Bishop of Bath and Wells! That reverend prelate had shown her much kindness and attention; he would know how to interfere in such a crisis. He was a man of authority. Between them could they not enforce the peace at Hammer's Fields, and could not Sir Jasper be saved in spite of himself, were it by delivering him into the hands of the law?

Lady Standish flew into her room and called the sniffing Megrim.

"Paper and ink," cried she, "and get you ready to run on a message. 'Tis a matter of life and death."

"My Lady," said Megrim primly, "I will serve your Ladyship in all things that are right; but I hope I know my dooty to my Creator; and stoop to connive at irregularities, my Lady, I won't and never will." She had been ready to condemn her master overnight, but the talk in the servants' hall had, as she expressed it, "opened her eyes." And what woman is not ready to judge her sister woman--above all, what maid to condemn her mistress?

Lady Standish stared.

"What means this?" said she. "You shall do as I bid you, Mistress Megrim. How dare you!" cried Lady Standish with a sudden flash of comprehension. "Why, woman, my letter is to the Bishop!"

"Oh," quoth Mistress Megrim, still with reserve, yet condescending to approval, "that is another matter! Shall I," she sniffed, "be stricter than becomes a Christian? Shall I refuse aid to the bruised sinner or to the smoking lamp whose conscience is awakened? May his Lordship be a tower of strength to your Ladyship along the rocky paths of penitence--Amen!"

SCENE VIII

In ten minutes a fair lady may do much to enhance her fairness. As Mistress Bellairs took a last look at her mirror, while Lydia bustled out to call a hired chair, she bestowed upon her reflection a smile of approval which indeed so charming an image could not fail to call forth. Then she huddled herself in a mysterious and all enveloping cloak, caught up a little velvet mask from the table, and sped upon her errand. She sallied forth as the gallant soldier might to battle, with a beating heart yet a high one.

Lord Verney and Captain Spicer had just finished breakfast at the former's lodgings in Pierrepoint Street, near North Parade. Captain Spicer, babbling ineptly of his own experience as a duellist, of his scorn of Sir Jasper's lunacy, yet of his full determination to slay the vile madman, had done ample justice to his young principal's table. But Lord Verney, his cheek now darkly flushed, now spread with an unwholesome pallor, found it hard to swallow even a mouthful of bread, and restlessly passed from the contemplation of the clock and the setting of his watch to the handling of his pistols, or the hasty addition of yet another postscript to the ill-spelt, blotted farewell epistle he had spent half the night in inditing to the Dowager his mother: "In case, you know..." he had said to his friend, with a quiver in his voice.

Captain Spicer had earnestly promised to carry out his patron's last wishes in the most scrupulous manner.

"My dear Lord," he had said, grasping him by the hand, "rely upon me. Gad, Sir Jasper is a devil of a shot I hear, and of course, he, he! we all know the saying--the strength of a madman. But no sooner has he laid you, Harry, than I vow, upon my honour, I shall hold him at my sword's point. I will revenge thee, Harry, never fear of that. 'Twill be a mighty genteel story, and the world will ring with it. Egad, he will not be the first I have spitted as easy as your cook would spit a turkey. Have I not learnt of the great Angelo Malevolti himself? He, he--'A woman's hand,' he would say, 'and the devil's head!'"

Here Captain Spicer shook out his bony fingers from the encumbering ruffles and contemplated them with much satisfaction.

"Oh, hang you, Spicer, be quiet, can't you!" cried Lord Verney petulantly.

The Captain leant back on his chair and began to pick his teeth with a silver toothpick.

"Pooh, these novices!" said he, as if to himself. "Keep your nerves steady, my Lord, or, stab me, I may as well order the mourning-coach before we start. He, he! 'Tis well, indeed, you have a friend to stand by you!"

A discreet tap was heard at the door, and Lord Verney's impassive new servant (especially engaged on his behalf by the Captain, who indeed, some ill-natured wag had it, shared his wages and perquisites) stood in the doorway.

"There is a lady downstairs, my Lord," he said in his mechanical voice. "She particularly requests to see your Lordship and will take no denial, although I informed her that your Lordship was like to be engaged until late in the morning."

Lord Verney merely stared in amazement; but Captain Spicer sprang up from his chair, his pale eyes starting with curiosity.

"A lady, gad! Verney, you dog, what is this? A lady, Ned? Stay, is she tall and fair and slight?"

"No, sir, she is under-sized, and seems plump, though she is wrapt in so great a cloak I could hardly tell."

"Pretty, man?"

"Cannot say, sir, she wears a mask."

"A mask? He, Verney, Verney, this is vastly interesting! And she won't go away, eh, Ned?"

"No, sir, she must see his Lordship, she said, if only for five minutes."

"Plump, under-sized, masked," ejaculated Captain Spicer in burning perplexity. "Gad, we have ten minutes yet, we will have her up, eh, Verney? Show her up, Ned."

The servant withdrew, unheeding Lord Verney's stammered protest.

"Really, Captain Spicer," said he, "I would have liked to have kept these last ten minutes for something serious. I would have liked," said the lad with a catch in his voice and a hot colour on his cheek, "to have read a page of my Bible before starting, were it only for my mother's sake, afterwards."

The led Captain threw up hand and eye in unfeigned horror.

"A page of your Bible! Zounds! If it gets out, we are the laughing-stock of Bath. A page of your Bible! 'Tis well no one heard you but I."

"Hush!" said Lord Verney, for in the doorway stood their visitor. 'Twas indeed a little figure, wrapt in a great cloak, and except for the white hand that held the folds, and the glimpse of round chin and cherry lip that was trembling beneath the curve of the mask, there was naught else to betray her identity, to tell whether she were young or old, well-favoured or disinherited. But it was a charming little hand, and an engaging little chin.

Lord Verney merely stood and stared like the boy he was. But Captain Spicer leaped forward with a spring like a grasshopper, and crossing his lean shanks, he presented a chair with the killing grace of which he alone was master. The lady entered the room, put her hand on the back of the chair, and turned upon Captain Spicer.

"I would see Lord Verney alone, sir," she said. It was a very sweet voice, but it was imperious. The masked lady had all the air of one who was accustomed to instant obedience.

In vain Captain Spicer leered and languished; the black eyes gleamed from behind the disguise very coldly and steadily back at him. Forced to withdraw, he endeavoured to do so with wit and elegance, but he was conscious somehow of cutting rather a poor figure; and under the unknown one's hand the door closed upon him with so much energy as to frustrate utterly his last bow.

Kitty Bellairs deliberately turned the key in the lock, and put it in her pocket. Lord Verney started forward, but was arrested by the sound of his own name, pronounced in the most dulcet and plaintive tone he thought he had ever heard.

"Lord Verney," said Kitty, flinging back her cloak and hood and allowing her pretty brown curls, and a hint of the most perfect shape in Bath, to become visible to the young peer's bewildered gaze. "Lord Verney," said she, and clasped her hands, "a very, very unhappy woman has come to throw herself upon your compassion."

"Madam," said Lord Verney, "what can I do for you?" His boyish soul was thrilled by these gentle accents of grief; he thought he saw a tear running down the white chin; the rounded bosom heaved beneath its bewitching disorder of lace. He glanced at the clock and back at the suppliant in a cruel perplexity. "Madam," said he, "time presses; I have but a few minutes to give you. Tell me, madam, how can I serve you? To do so will be a comfort to me in what is perhaps the last hour of my life."

The lady gave a cry as soft as a dove's, and as plaintive.

"Oh," said she, "it is true, then, what I heard?" and the white hands were wrung together as in extremest anguish.

"Madam," cried he, with outspread arms, and, though without daring to touch her, drawing closer, so close as to hear the quick catch of her breath and to inhale the subtle fragrance of violets that emanated from her.

"Oh," said she, "it is true!" She staggered and caught at the fastenings of her cloak and threw it open.

"You are faint," he cried, strangely moved; "let me call."

But she caught him by the hand. Her fingers were curiously warm for one seized with faintness, but the touch of them was pleasant to the young man as never woman's touch had been before. Out flew the fellow hand to keep his prisoner, and they clung round his great boy's wrist.

He never knew how, but suddenly he was on his knees before her.

"You are going to fight," said she, "to fight with Sir Jasper. Oh, my God, you do not know, but it is because of me, and if you fight it will break my heart." She leant forward to look eagerly at him as he knelt. Her breath fanned his cheek. Through her mask he saw beautiful black eyes, deep, deep. How white the skin was upon her neck and chin--how fine its grain! What little wanton curls upon her head! What a fragrance of flowers in the air! How he longed to pluck that mask away--and yet how the very mystery lured him, held him!

"Who are you?" said he, in a low quick whisper. "Let me see your face."

She forbade his indiscreet hand with a little shriek.

"No, no, no, you must never see, never know; that would be terrible."

Then he placed both his hands, all unconsciously, upon hers, and then she caught them both and held them, and he felt that her weak grasp was to him as strong as iron.

"Why do you fight?" said she. "Tell me."

He blushed.

"'Tis for nothing, the merest misunderstanding. Sir Jasper is mad, I think."

"Sir Jasper is jealous," breathed she, and nearer came the gaze of the eyes. "Is it true that you love Lady Standish?"

"I?" cried he vehemently, and rapped out a great oath--so eager was he to deny. "I? No! God is my witness. No!"

"Then do not fight," said she.

He wanted to look at the clock; he wanted to spring up and rush to the door; he was conscious that Spicer was knocking gently, and that it was time to go where the conventions of honour called him. The soft clasp held him, and the mysterious eyes. He was a very boy, and had never loved before, and--she was masked!

"Let me advise you," said she. "Believe me, your welfare is dearer to me than you can imagine--dearer to me than I ought to tell you. Believe me, if you give up this duel you will live to be glad of it. Sir Jasper will thank you no later than this very day, as never man thanked man before. And you will make me so happy! Oh, believe me, your honour is safe with me."

"Only let me see your face," said he, while Spicer knocked louder. "I will see her, and kiss her," he thought to himself, "and that will be something to carry to my death."

"How dare you ask it?" she said. "Must I grant your request when you refuse me mine?"

"And if I grant you yours," said he, as his heart beat very fast, "what will you give me?"

"Oh, give," said she, "give! Who cares for gifts? A man must take." Her red lip beneath the mask here became arched so bewitchingly over a row of the whitest teeth in all the world, that Harry Verney, whose head had been rapidly going, lost it and his heart together.

"That is a challenge," said he, as he drew a hand away and lifted it to the mask.

"Ah, traitor!" she cried, and made a dainty start of resistance. His fingers trembled on the soft scented locks.

"You shall not," said she, and bent her head to avoid his touch, so that as he knelt their faces were closer together than ever.

"Oh!" cried he, and kissed her on the chin beneath the mask.

SCENE IX

"My Lord," clamoured Captain Spicer at the door, "the coach is waiting and we have but half an hour to reach Bathwick Meadows. Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the meeting?"