oon. This letter, therefore, gave me a
fair opportunity of venting my spleen; but instead of a cool dismissal,
as Clara requested, I determined to dismiss him or myself to another
world.

Having finished reading my letter, I laid it down, and made no
observation. Talbot, with his usual kind and benevolent countenance,
inquired if I had any news? "Yes," I replied, "I have discovered that
you are a villain!"

"That is news indeed," said he; "and strange that the brother of Clara
should have been the messenger to convey it; but this is language,
Frank, which not even your unhappy state of mind can excuse. Retract
your words."

"I repeat them," said I. "You have trifled with my sister, and are a
villain." (Had this been true, it was no more than I had done myself;
but my victims had no brothers to avenge their wrongs.)

"The name of Clara," replied Talbot, "calms me: believe me, Frank, you
are mistaken. I love her, and have always had the most honourable
intentions towards her."

"Yes," said I, with a sarcastic sneer, "at the time that you have been
engaged to another woman for years. To one or the other you must
acknowledge yourself a scoundrel: I do not, therefore, withdraw my
appellation, but repeat it; and as you seem so very patient under
injuries, I inform you that you must either meet me on the sands this
evening, or consent to be stigmatised with another name still more
revolting to the feelings of an Englishman."

"Enough, enough, Frank," said Talbot, with a face in which conscious
innocence and manly fortitude were blended. "You have said more than I
ever expected to have heard from you, and more than the customs of the
world will allow me to put up with. What must be, must; but I still
tell you, Frank, that you are wrong, that you are fatally deluded, and
that you will bitterly repent the follies of this day. It is yourself
with whom you are angry, and you are venting that anger on your friend."

The words were thrown away on me. I felt a secret malignant pleasure,
which blindly impelled me forward, with the certainty of glutting my
revenge, by either destroying or being destroyed. My sole preparation
for this dreadful conflict was my pistols; no other did I, think of, not
even the chances of sending my friend and fellow-mortal, or going
myself, into the presence of an Almighty Judge. My mind was absorbed in
secret pleasure at the idea of that acute misery which Emily would
suffer if I fell