s with messages for
you. A terrible thing has happened, sir. The dispatches from home by the
Thunderbolt which we forwarded from here three weeks ago reached Lord
Wellington only the day before yesterday."

Sir Terence became instantly alert.

"Garfield, who carried them, came into collision at Penalva with an
officer of Anson's Brigade. There was a meeting, and Garfield was shot
through the lung. He lay between life and death for a fortnight,
with the result that the dispatches were delayed until he recovered
sufficiently to remember them and to have them forwarded by other hands.
But you had better see Stanhope himself."

The aide-de-camp came in. He was splashed from head to foot in witness
of the fury with which he had ridden, his hair was caked with dust and
his face haggard. But he carried himself with soldierly uprightness, and
his speech was brisk. He repeated what Tremayne had already stated, with
some few additional details.

"This wretched fellow sent Lord Wellington a letter dictated from his
bed, in which he swore that the duel was forced upon him, and that his
honour allowed him no alternative. I don't think any feature of the case
has so deeply angered Lord Wellington as this stupid plea. He mentioned
that when Sir John Moore was at Herrerias, in the course of his retreat
upon Corunna, he sent forward instructions for the leading division to
halt at Lugo, where he designed to deliver battle if the enemy would
accept it. That dispatch was carried to Sir David Baird by one of Sir
John's aides, but Sir David forwarded it by the hand of a trooper who
got drunk and lost it. That, says Lord Wellington, is the only parallel,
so far as he is aware, of the present case, with this difference, that
whilst a common trooper might so far fail to appreciate the importance
of his mission, no such lack of appreciation can excuse Captain
Garfield."

"I am glad of that," said Sir Terence, who had been bristling. "For a
moment I imagined that it was to be implied I had been as indiscreet in
my choice of a messenger as Sir David Baird."

"No, no, Sir Terence. I merely repeated Lord Wellington's words that
you may realise how deeply angered he is. If Garfield recovers from
his wound he will be tried by court-martial. He is under open arrest
meanwhile, as is his opponent in the duel--a Major Sykes of the 23rd
Dragoons. That they will both be broke is beyond doubt. But that is not
all. This affair, which might have had su