dering that our time was named 'sharp six,'" interposed
Trouville, "is a very reasonable 'grace.'"

"Your expression is an impertinence, Monsieur," said Norwood, fiercely.

"And yet I don't intend to apologize for it," said the other, smiling.

"I 'm glad of it, sir. It's the only thing you have said to-day with
either good sense or spirit."

"Enough, quite enough, my Lord," replied the Frenchman, gayly. "'Dans la
bonne societe, on ne dit jamais de trop.' Where shall it be, and when?"

"Here, and now," said Norwood, "if I can only find any one who will act
for me."

"Pray, my Lord, don't go in search of him," said Trouville, "or we shall
despair of seeing you here again."

"I will give a bail for my reappearance, sir, that you cannot doubt of,"
cried Norwood, advancing towards the other with his cane elevated.

A perfect burst of horror broke from the Frenchmen at this threat,
and three or four immediately threw themselves between the contending
parties.

"But for this, my Lord," said the old officer, "I should have offered
you my services."

"And I should have declined them, sir," said Norwood, promptly. "The
first peasant I meet with will suffice;" and, so saying, he hurried
from the spot, his heart almost bursting with passion. With many a
malediction of George--with curses deep and cutting on every one whose
misconduct had served to place him in his present position--he took his
way towards the high-road.

"What could have happened?" muttered he; "what confounded fit of
poltroonery has seized him? a fellow that never wanted pluck in his
life! Is it possible that he can have failed now? And this to occur at
the very moment they are beggared! Had they been rich, as they were a
few months back, I'd have made the thing pay. Ay, by Jove! I 'd have
'coined my blood,' as the fellow says in the play, and written a
swingeing check with red ink! And now I have had a bad quarrel, and
nothing to come of it! And so to walk the high-roads in search of some
one who can load a pistol."

A stray peasant or two, jogging along to Florence, a postilion with
return horses, a shabbily dressed curate, or a friar with a sack behind
him, were all that he saw for miles of distance, and he returned
once more to interrogate the calessino driver as to the stranger who
accompanied him from the city.

Any one whose misfortune it may have been to make inquiries from
an Italian vetturino of any fact, no matter how insignificant or