pertinence by a witty picture of the persons
around me I had convulsed the whole room with laughter, I sprang up,
and, saying good-night, disappeared.

The roars of their laughter followed me down the corridor, nor did they
cease to ring in my ears till I had closed my door.

CHAPTER XXIX. AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING

I could more easily record my sensations in the paroxysm of a fever than
recall how I passed that night. I am aware that I wrote a long letter
to my mother, and a longer to Sara, both to be despatched in case ill
befell me in my encounter. What I said to either, or how I said it, I
know not.

No more can I explain why I put all my papers together in such fashion
that they could be thrown into the fire at once, without leaving any,
the slightest, clew to trace me by. That secret, which I had affected to
hold so cheaply, did in reality possess some strange fascination for me,
and I desired to be a puzzle and an enigma even after I was gone.

It wanted one short hour of dawn when I had finished; but I was still
too much excited to sleep. I knew how unfavorably I should come to the
encounter before me with jarred nerves and the weariness of a night's
watching; but it was too late now to help that; too late, besides, to
speculate on what men would say of such a causeless duel, brought on,
as I could not conceal from myself, by my hot temper. By the time I had
taken my cold bath my nerves became more braced, and I scarcely felt a
trace of fatigue or exhaustion. The gray morning was just breaking as
I stole quietly downstairs and issued forth into the courtyard. A heavy
fall of snow had occurred in the night, and an unbroken expanse of
billowy whiteness spread ont before me, save where, from a corner of the
court, some foot-tracks led towards the riding-school. I saw, therefore,
that I was not the first at the tryst, and I hastened on in all speed.

Six or eight young men, closely muffled in furs, stood at the door as
I came up, and gravely uncovered to me. They made way for me to pass
in without speaking; and while, stamping the snow from my boots, I said
something about the cold of the morning, they muttered what might mean
assent or the reverse in a low half-sulky tone, that certainly little
invited to further remark.

For a few seconds they talked together in whispers, and then a tall
ill-favored fellow, with a deep scar from the cheek-bone to the upper
lip, came abruptly up to me.

"Look here, you