ir, a whisper of death
stole across the empty fields and bare hill-side. The birds heard it and
were silent. The November wind was hurrying round Westhope Abbey,
shaking its bare trees.

Lord Newhaven stood looking fixedly out eastward across the level land
to the low hills beyond. He stood so long that the day died, and
twilight began to rub out first the hills and then the long, white lines
of flooded meadow and blurred pollard willows. Presently the river mist
rose up to meet the coming darkness. In the east, low and lurid, a tawny
moon crept up the livid sky. She made no moonlight on the gray earth.

Lord Newhaven moved away from the window, where he had become a shadow
among the shadows, and sat down in the dark at his writing-table.

Presently he turned on the electric lamp at his elbow and took a letter
out of his pocket. The circle of shaded light fell on his face as he
read--the thin, grave face, with the steady, inscrutable eyes.

He read the letter slowly, evidently not for the first time.

"If I had not been taken by surprise at the moment I should not have
consented to the manner in which our differences were settled.
Personally, I consider the old arrangement, to which you regretfully
alluded at the time"--("pistols for two and coffee for four," I remember
perfectly)--"as preferable, and as you appeared to think so yourself,
would it not be advisable to resort to it? Believing that the old
arrangement will meet your wishes as fully as it does mine, I trust that
you will entertain this suggestion, and that you will agree to a meeting
with your own choice of weapons, on any pretext you may choose to name
within the next week."

The letter ended there. It was unsigned.

"The time is certainly becoming short," said Lord Newhaven. "He is right
in saying there is only a week left. If it were not for the scandal for
the boys, and if I thought he would really hold to the compact, I would
meet him, but _he won't_. He flinched when he drew lots. He won't. He
has courage enough to stand up in front of me for two minutes, and take
his chance, but not to blow his own brains out. No. And if he knew what
is in store for him if he does not, he would not have courage to face
that either. Nor should I if I were in his shoes, poor devil. The first
six foot of earth would be good enough for me."

He threw the letter with its envelope into the fire and watched it burn.

Then he took up the gold pen, which his wife had