lied to me!"

Burr compressed his lips and filled his lungs with a quick-drawn
breath. His cheeks purpled and his eyes shot dark fire.

"Mr. Arlington, you go too far. I cannot brook insult."

"Do not brook it. Resent it. You have smutched my honor. You have
ruined the Blennerhassetts. You have betrayed a host of confiding
people. You have endeavored to destroy the Union. I can right myself
before the country and in my own estimation only by calling you to
personal account. Will you meet me with pistol or with sword?"

Burr quenched the resentful fires that burnt in his heart, and replied
calmly:

"My friend, I decline to meet you in any form of duel. You cannot
provoke me to accept your challenge. I respect you too much to kill
you. You demand satisfaction. Arlington, no satisfaction comes to
either party in a fatal conflict. The dead man is indifferent to the
boast of honor vindicated. I have fought my last duel. But don't
imagine me afraid of threats, or bullets, or swords."

The Virginian responded in milder tones.

"Can you justify your deceptions, practised on me, or make amends for
the injury done the Blennerhassetts?"

"I justify nothing. I promise no reform. My plan failed. I did my
best. I am no traitor. I meant to benefit everybody. I shall be
vindicated. Good-bye. Go, Arlington, marry the belle of Marietta, and
be a happy man."

Arlington's nostrils quivered. A second surge of anger swept over him.
Burr continued:

"I advise seriously. Win Miss Hale. I know she likes you. She is the
finest woman west of the Appalachians--or east of them. I had
matrimonial inclinings toward the paragon myself."

"That I know," said the young man, with crabbed acrimony.

"Yes, you know that. That is an additional reason, you think, for
wishing to meet me in dudgeon. A lover hates a rival, even an
unsuccessful one, and cherishes hotter resentment against the man who
steals a kiss from his lady love than against him who violates a dozen
federal constitutions, and breaks all the apron strings of his mother
country."

The flippancy of this speech renewed Arlington's animosity.

"You will not, then, permit me to right myself by the code of honor?"

"No, Arlington, as I told you, I fought my last duel on the bank of
the Hudson. Good-bye. I am not the bad man you believe me to be. But I
am under a cloud. My hopes are darkened. I would like to keep your
friendship, but cannot demand it. It was in our plans to make