my opponent
as the cause of all my present misery. "How very differently," thought
I, "her friend the captain would have conducted himself. His quiet and
gentlemanly manner would have done fully as much to wipe out any insult on
his honor as I could do, and after all, would neither have disturbed the
harmony of a dinner-table, nor made himself, as I shuddered to think I
had, a subject of rebuke, if not of ridicule." These harassing, torturing
reflections continued to press on me, and I paced the room with my hands
clasped and the perspiration upon my brow. "One thing is certain,--I can
never see her again," thought I; "this disgraceful business must, in some
shape or other, become known to her, and all I have been saying these
last three days rise up in judgment against this one act, and stamp me an
impostor! I that decried--nay, derided--our false notion of honor. Would
that Considine were come! What can keep him now?" I walked to the door; a
boy belonging to the house was walking the roan before the door. "What had,
then, become of Pat?" I inquired; but no one could tell. He had disappeared
shortly after our arrival, and had not been seen afterwards. My own
thoughts were, however, too engrossing to permit me to think more of this
circumstance, and I turned again to enter the house, when I saw Considine
advancing up the road at the full speed of his pony.

"Out with the mare, Charley! Be alive, my boy!--all's settled." So saying,
he sprang from the pony and proceeded to harness the roan with the greatest
haste, informing me in broken sentences, as he went on with all the
arrangements.

"We are to cross the bridge of Portumna. They won the ground, and it seems
Bodkin likes the spot; he shot Peyton there three years ago. Worse luck
now, Charley, you know; by all the rule of chance, he can't expect the same
thing twice,--never four by honors in two deals. Didn't say that, though. A
sweet meadow, I know it well; small hillocks, like molehills; all over it.
Caught him at breakfast; I don't think he expected the message to come from
us, but said it was a very polite attention,--and so it was, you know."

So he continued to ramble on as we once more took our seats in the tax-cart
and set out for the ground.

"What are you thinking of, Charley?" said the count, as I kept silent for
some minutes.

"I'm thinking, sir, if I were to kill him, what I must do after."

"Right, my boy; nothing like that, but I'll settle all for y