, lit by
candles, reeking of dinner and of wine. Eliott, still brooding over his
defeat in the recent parliamentary election, bent on picking a quarrel;
Stewart, amiable and for a time conciliatory, till goaded beyond
endurance; the two officers, very red in the face, laughing and treating
the whole affair as a huge joke; and Timpendean, the while, in a
monotonous loud bawl, chanting, very much out of tune, a song, most of
the verses of which he forgot before he had sung two lines, ever
starting afresh _ad nauseam_, after the manner of drunken men. It was
not a seemly spectacle, but it was the fashion of the day, and but for
Eliott all might have ended with no worse effect than a bad headache
next morning. But for Eliott--unfortunately. Nothing, apparently, would
satisfy that gentleman. Colonel Stewart had let fall words which were
twisted into an affront. The Colonel assured him that no such words had
passed his lips; but that if he had by chance uttered anything which
could be construed as an insult, or if anything said by him had hurt Sir
Gilbert's feelings, he was sorry for it, and he willingly apologised.

Then Sir Gilbert must needs drag in politics. There was the burning
question of the late election. Why had Colonel Stewart voted against
him? He would have expected the Colonel's vote sooner than anybody's,
and he took it ill that it had not been given to him. Colonel Stewart
explained that as he lay under very great obligations to Sir Patrick
Scott and his family, he considered that he had no choice but to vote as
he had done; but this did not satisfy Sir Gilbert; the vote _should_
have been his by rights, and all the efforts of Captain Ross as
peacemaker could not keep him from harping on this one string--the
supposed slight put upon him in the matter of the vote. Colonel Stewart
was more than willing to drop the subject, and at last Captain Ross,
thinking the matter settled, momentarily turned away, in an endeavour to
stop the monotony of Timpendean's tuneless, dreary song.

And then the mischief began. Sir Gilbert used words which, owing to
Timpendean's noise, Ross did not catch, but he heard Colonel Stewart's
reply: "Pray, Sir Gilbert, you have said a great deal already to provoke
me; don't provoke me further." Then more hot words from Eliott, and
Colonel Stewart threw a glass of wine in the baronet's face. With that,
Eliott started to his feet, drew his sword, and plunged it into
Stewart's stomach before t