Chapter XXIII: Alexander’s Jealousy

Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms,
For which he melts in fondness, eat him up
With fervent anguish and consuming rage.—THOMPSON.

We must return to the hour when Alexander threw himself into his cab and dashed back to his hotel. He did not go to bed, you may be sure. He had a countryman and an acquaintance in the same house, who was no other than our young friend, Francis Tredegar.

Francis occupied the singular position of being on friendly terms with both Alick and Drusilla, without knowing or even suspecting the relation that these two bore to each other; and, moreover, as he never happened to mention the name of Lord Killcrichtoun to Mrs. Lyon, or that of Mrs. Lyon to Lord Killcrichtoun, neither one of these was aware of his acquaintance with the other.

Mr. Tredegar had been at the Ambassadress’ ball, and had returned to his hotel about the same hour that Alexander got back there.

So Alexander, instead of going directly to his own apartments, went first to Mr. Tredegar’s room and rapped

“Who’s there?” cried a voice from within.

“It is I. Have you retired yet?”

“No. Come in.”

Alick entered and found his friend, divested of his coat and vest and preparing for bed.

“Put on your clothes again, Francis, you must do something for me before you sleep,” said Alexander, walking towards the dressing-table at which Mr. Tredegar stood, with his back to his visitor.

“Good gracious, Alick, my dear fellow, what on earth can you want me to do for you at four o’clock in the morning, after having made a night of it at the ball?” laughed Francis Tredegar, turning around in much surprise; but his surprise became consternation as he gazed on the haggard features and ghastly complexion of his visitor. “Merciful Heaven, Alick!” he exclaimed, “what is the matter? What on earth has happened to you?”

“I have been insulted, outraged, beyond all endurance. And I want you to be the bearer of a challenge from me!” grimly replied Alexander.

“A challenge, Alick! In the name of reason, are you mad?”

“I wish I were! Perhaps I am! But in a few words, Tredegar, if I convince you that I have been wronged to a degree unendurable by an honorable man, will you then become the bearer of my challenge to the base caitiff who has so foully abused me?”

“Why certainly I will, Alick. In any just cause I will stand by you to the very death! But is it really as bad as you think?”

“‘As bad as I think?’ Listen.”

“Sit down, Alick, and tell me all about it,” said Tredegar, rolling towards his visitor a comfortable arm-chair.

Alick dropped into the offered seat.

Tredegar perched himself on the corner of the dressing-table.

“I will put a case and let you judge for yourself. Suppose that you were devoted to a beautiful, amiable and accomplished woman, who was at least equally devoted to yourself——”

“Heavens! If I could suppose that I should be in paradise!”

“No levity, if you please, Francis.”

“Beg pardon. I will be as grave as a rejected lover, or—as an _accepted_ one!”

“Suppose this mutual devotion had grown up with you from infancy to maturity; and that it was consecrated by the most sacred bonds and pledges.”

“Meaning, poetically speaking, ‘bonds of matrimony’ and ‘pledges of affection’—otherwise, practically prosing, wife and children.”

“No, not exactly; but, to continue: Suppose this mutual devotion to have lived on in love, and trust, and joy, and peace until certain untoward circumstances—your own madness, to wit:—disturbed the harmony of your relations; yet still in all the discord this mutual love lived on; lived on, only deepened and strengthened by separation and suffering,—lived on until just at the time you were beginning to dream of reconciliation and reunion with your first love—your only love, your life’s love—a base villain steps in between you, and, favored by fortune and by position, dazzles the mind and steals the heart of your beloved!”

“And is that suppository case your own, Alick?”

“Yes, it is. What would you do if it were yours?”

“I’d let him have her! I’d give ’em my blessing, and let ’em go! But then I’m not you, Alick; if you feel inclined to call the fellow out and giving him a chance to settle your prior claims by blowing out your heated brains, why that’s _your_ affair!”

“And _you_ will have nothing to do with it?”

“I did not say that, Alick; quite the contrary! You have been wronged, and I will see you righted if I can—and righted in your own way too!”

“Then you will take my challenge?”

“With all my heart. To whom am I to take it?”

“To Prince Ernest of Hohenlinden. May the demon fly away with him!”

“To Prince Ernest of Hohenlinden, _Whew!_”

“What’s the matter?”

“He’s a dead shot—the deadliest shot on this side the ocean!”

“That is not saying much for him! I’m a second or third rate marksman on the other side of the ocean. So that makes us about equal. Will you come to my room now, Tredegar? I wish to write my despatch and send it off at once. No time should be lost in these affairs.”

“What! are you in such hot haste to meet your foe? Are your feet so ‘swift to shed blood?’ Will you then rush, as our grand Halleck has it—

‘To death as to a festival?’

Alick, Alick! I am sorry for you!”

“Spare your compassion and come to my room,” said Alexander, rising and leading the way through the halls and corridors that led to his own sumptuous suite of apartments.

Arrived there, Alexander made Francis Tredegar sit down, while he placed himself at his writing-desk and penned his challenge to the prince.

“I shall not have far to seek, at any rate,” said Mr. Tredegar, as he received the note, “for Prince Ernest has apartments on this very floor.”

“I knew of course that he was stopping here,” said Alexander.

“And now then, if it is a discreet question, who is the fair lady for whose sake two such gallant knights are to do battle?” inquired Tredegar, poising the paper on his finger.

“But it is _not_ a fair question, Tredegar. The name of the lady should never be mentioned in such matters. I cannot utter it even to you, dear Francis,” said Alick gravely.

“All right. But see here! It is never that beautiful young widow, Mrs. Lyon, who made such a sensation as the belle of the ball last night?”

“Bosh!” exclaimed Alexander, growing deadly white, and jerking himself around in apparent impatience, but with a real desire to conceal his emotion—“Bosh, I say! It is no widow for whose sake I wish to meet him. There is not a widow alive in whom I feel the slightest interest!”

“Well, then, I think you are all at sea about the prince. He thinks of no other woman in the world but the beautiful widow. His devotion to her was the general topic of conversation last night.”

“And I tell you that you are all ‘at sea,’ as you call it, my dear Francis. Come! you have taken my word for the justice of my cause, now take my challenge to my foe.”

“Well, that is soon done, unless he has gone to bed.”

“That he has not I will venture to predict. He is waiting my challenge.”

“As eager for the fray as yourself, eh?”

“Quite.”

“But see here, Alick! I promised to stand by you in this cause, and I will do it; but though I bear your challenge, I shall try to settle this affair amicably.”

“‘Amicably?’ It can never——”

“Oh, I know it would be quite useless to argue with you, but Prince Ernest may be more amenable to reason, more open to conviction.”

“Will you go?”

“Well, yes, I am going,” said Tredegar, leaving the room.

As soon as he was alone Alexander looked at the clock. It wanted a quarter to five.

In passing before his dressing-table, his eye caught the reflection of his ghastly face in the glass.

“Good heavens!” he said, “I look like a ghost already. I shall not look more pallid after that fellow has killed me—if he does kill me—than I do now; and that chance of death reminds me that I must settle up my worldly affairs as quickly as I can.”

So saying, he sat down to his writing table, took a sheet of foolscap and a coarse pen, and began to write. He wrote a few lines in an “engrossing” hand, and then stopped, with a troubled brow, to reflect. Thus writing and reflecting, he completed the work he was on in about half an hour.

Then he took note paper and another pen and wrote a letter, which he placed in an envelope, sealed and directed.

Finally he sat back in his chair, and fell into deep thought.

When Mr. Tredegar had been gone an hour, he returned and re-entered the room.

“Well?” exclaimed Alick, looking up.

“Well, it is settled,” said Tredegar, dropping into a chair near his friend. “I found Prince Ernest even more resolutely bent upon the meeting than you are. He considers himself the insulted party. When I requested to see him, I was admitted at once to his chamber, where I found him tearing up and down the floor in his sacred shirt. If my errand had not been so grave, I could have laughed. He made no sort of apology for his extreme déshabille, but seemed to know my errand. I handed him your challenge. He then began to rave about the insult that had been offered him, and the ‘grawnd satees-fac-shee-on,’ as he called it, that he would take. He introduced me to his friend, Major Ernest Zollenhoffar, or some such barbaric name, and he told me to settle the preliminaries of the meeting with him. Then he dismissed us to an adjoining room.”

“And you settled them?”

“Yes; subject, of course, to the approval of the principals. Prince Ernest approves. It is now for you to pass judgment.”

“It is not likely that I shall object. Let me hear them.”

Francis Tredegar took from his breast pocket a folded paper, opened it, and partly read from it and partly said:

“As it is not possible that this meeting should take place on English soil, it is arranged that the parties go by the next train to Southampton, take the steamer to Jersey and proceed to the open country between St. Aubins and St. Héléir. The exact spot of the duel to be settled afterward. The weapons are to be pistols. The distance ten paces. The signals—One—Two—Three. At the last word—FIRE!”

“That will do. We must go by the eight o’clock train, which is the next. Let me see;—it is now a quarter past five. We must leave this house by seven, in order to make sure of our train. Thus we have but an hour and three-quarters for preparation,” said Alexander.

“But I have not read you all the articles yet. There is something about surgeons and attendants——”

“Let all that go. It is of minor importance,” said Alexander, laying his hand upon the cord of the bell that communicated with his valet’s room.

He rang loudly and repeatedly. And presently the man made his appearance, half asleep and half dressed.

“Simms,” said his master, “pack my portmanteau with a change of clothes and small dressing-case. We go to Southampton by the eight o’clock train.”

The man stared a little at this unexpected order, but, being a well trained servant, suppressed his surprise and hastened to obey his orders.

Alexander examined his pistol-case, and, seeing that all was right, proceeded to prepare himself for his sudden journey.

Francis Tredegar repaired to his own chamber for the same purpose.

Half an hour passed in this manner, and then Mr. Tredegar returned, traveling-bag in hand.

He found Alexander again at his writing desk.

“Come here, Francis, my dear boy; I want you to witness the signing of my will,” said Alexander, looking around.

“You will require two witnesses,” observed Francis Tredegar, gravely, as he approached the table.

“Yes, I know! Here, Simms.”

The valet came up.

In the presence of his friend and his servant, Alexander signed his will. And then Francis Tredegar and John Simms signed as witnesses.

“Now, Tredegar, I have named you and another one, executors of this will. But I wish you to take charge of it in case anything should happen to me.”

“Oh, bosh!” said Tredegar, gaily, yet with a tremulous tone,—“these affairs seldom end fatally.”

But he took the will and put it carefully in his breast pocket.

“It is nearly seven o’clock now. I wonder if we could get some coffee. Go down, Simms, and see, and have it brought to this room,” said Alexander.

The servant went on this errand.

The master turned again to his friend.

“Here, Francis,” he said, gravely, as he handed the letter he had written; “I wish you, in case of my death, to deliver this letter to its address.”

“Oh, nonsense. There is going to be nothing so solemn. You may be wounded slightly, and as you are a good marksman you may wound Prince Ernest seriously. That will be all,” said Mr. Tredegar. But his voice trembled as he spoke, and his hand shook as he took charge of the letter.

“Why, good Heaven, Alick! this is directed to Mrs. Alexander Lyon, Morley House, Trafalgar Square,” said Tredegar, in unbounded astonishment, as he read the address.

“Yes, that is what she _calls_ herself,” said Alexander, grimly.

“And so it is the lovely widow, after all, who is the cause of this hostile meeting?”

“I told you that no widow had anything to do with it. She is not a widow, Tredegar.”

“Not a widow! and just now you hinted that she was not Mrs. Lyon. Who is she, then, Alick?”

“She is Lady Killcrichtoun—she is my wife, Tredegar.”

“Good Heavens, Alick!—Here!—Here is my hand! I go with you now heart and soul! I am not bloodthirsty, and I want no man’s life; but I do hope you will cripple that fellow for the rest of his days!” fervently exclaimed Francis Tredegar, clasping his hand into Alexander’s palm.

“I did not wish—I did not mean to mention her dear name in this connection; circumstances and necessity have forced it from me. Treat it as a sacred confidence, Tredegar.”

“By my soul I will!”

“And listen to this: the fault, the folly, the madness belong to _me_ and to that man. _She_ is blameless!—yes, blameless as any holy angel. I swear it by all my hopes of Heaven!”

The entrance of the waiter with a tray put an end to the conversation for the time being.

The friends took each a cup of coffee, a muffin, and a chop, and then went down-stairs and entered the cab that was already packed for their journey.