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the crowd of men my husband brings round me, who are all boring, and all alike; and I have allowed myself to be interested in him, perhaps a little more than I ought to be. But life is so empty."

"So empty! Poor Mary!" thought Arden, remembering Lady Maud Elderton, that other sister of his, in her rural rectory, for whom life was so full-full of simple things, of children, and children's clothes, and children's pleasures, and childish illnesses; of ponies and poultry, and husband, and sermons, and parish work.

"I should not have believed you, if I had not seen the truth in his face," said Lady Mary; "that cruel face, the eyes so brilliant and so hard, the sardonic lines of the iron lips. I used to admire him because he was so strong, like a tower, so strange, so terrible even; but to-night I saw the horror of it all. He is strong only in wickedness." "Thank God you are disillusioned." "Yes. The glamour has gone. I saw him in that instant without his mask. But that wretched girl! She was under the spell. Tell me about her."

Arden told her Lisbeth's story, briefly, but suppressing nothing, the pursuit, the elopement, the pit of hell into which the wretched girl had been flung, her attempt to drown herself, and her loss of reason.

"If you could have seen the human wreck that I carried home to a broken-hearted mother, you would hate the man as I do," he said. "Remember, it was no common cruelty. If he had loved the girl-even with an evil love—if he had chosen her for the companion of his life-one might say it was a common story of sin. But for a caprice, for the whim of an hour, he has destroyed a human soul, killed a life that was fair and full of promise."

"Oh, it is loathsome! I knew men were cruel to womencruel to women they pretend to love-but not so cruel as that; not destroying a helpless creature for the fancy of a moment. But he will try to take his revenge for to-night, Walter. Such a man will have no mercy. What were you

and he whispering about as we went downstairs ?” "Nothing of any consequence."

"Oh, but it must have been of consequence-in such a moment. You are not going to fight a duel with him?”

66

No, no. Here we are at the Bristol. Shall I see you to your rooms?”

"Don't trouble. My maid will be waiting for me, and I have a footman here. He will be sitting asleep in the hall, I dare say, poor wretch. Good night."

VII.

ARDEN called on Mr. de Courcy Smythe at the Continental, at eleven o'clock on the day after the Opera ball, and was fortunate enough to find that citizen of the world in the act of completing his toilet, in his comfortable apartment on the fourth floor, with a wide range of view over the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysées, the river, and the white façades and classic domes and pediments of official Paris on the farther shore-a dazzling picture in the clear light of a spring morning.

Smythe listened with a surprised interest when he heard that he was wanted as second in a duel; but when Arden told him the name of his antagonist, he dropped the coat he was in the act of putting on, and sat down in front of his friend.

"My dear Arden, I don't mind a duel, though it is deucedly un-English; but a duel with that satanic Russian ! For God's sake let it go no further. The man would kill you."

"Fortune of war. I hope I shall kill him."

"You hope-you, Walter Arden, the student, the mildest of men, a Brahmin, by Jove-would step out of your way rather than tread upon a worm! You! You want a man's blood upon your head ?"

"I want to kill that man. The world will be the better for his death."

"By Jupiter!"

Mr. Smythe could find no stronger expression of his astonishment. He put himself into his coat slowly, looking at his friend all the time.

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"I say, Arden, this seems a beastly business! Is it anything you have got into your head about your-abouthesitatingly.

"About my sister, Mary Selby? No; my quarrel with him has nothing to do with my sister, although I suppose people have talked about her notice of the man.'

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"People will talk, don't you know, Arden. Most of us are such duffers that if we didn't talk about our friends and relations and acquaintances, half the dinner-parties in London would be dumb-show. We must talk about something. Manville has hung about Lady Mary; and you see the cleverest woman seldom knows bad style from good in the other sex. Ask her to vet another woman, and she'll know in a minute if there's a screw loose; but if a man is handsome, well-dressed, and a good talker, she may know him for twenty years without finding out that he isn't a gentleman. However, I'm glad your quarrel isn't about Lady Mary."

"No, she is entirely unconcerned, though I want the man out of the way for her sake. I had better tell you my story; and then you'll know why I want to kill that man. I should never regret the deed. It would not be a murder, but an execution."

He told the history of Lisbeth Berry, exactly as he had told it to his sister.

"You are sure of your facts?"

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Quite sure. Most of them have come under my own observation; and the man who is my authority for the rest is to be relied upon. The victim is there, sitting by her mother's hearth, ruined, broken, without reason or memory." "But this man will kill you. Think what the man is! A soldier, a Hercules, a crack shot, and an accomplished swordsman."

"I am not afraid of his sword. I would rather fight him with swords than pistols."

"You! Are you a swordsman?"

"Yes. I suppose you think because I am bookish I don't care for anything outside a library. I have always been fond of fencing, ever since Angelo taught us at Eton. I have kept up the practice in England and in Italy, and I am pretty good at it. I am not afraid to meet Colonel Manville, though his height and weight may tell against me, and though he may be a better swordsman.”

"When am I to see his man ?”

"This afternoon, at four o'clock, at my hotel, the Loyola

"

"Connais pas," said Smythe.

"Lunch with me at Durant's, and I'll drive you there afterwards."

"Never mind lunch," said Smythe; I come to Milvoie's Salle d'Armes with me, and just let me see your form. It'll seem a little less like a human sacrifice if I see you are a good man with the foils."

"There is nothing I should like better. Have you had your little breakfast?"

"Two hours ago-rolls, coffee, and a new-laid egg."

"Then you won't mind lunching late. We'll go to the salle at once. I'll take half an hour's practice with the professor with épées de combat; and we'll adjourn to Durant's

for luncheon."

"Good," said Smythe.

They walked to the salle, which was in one of the new streets on the way to St. Lazare; and Smythe looked on at an encounter between his friend and the professional instructor, which convinced him of Arden's mastery of the sword.

"I call that an eye-opener," he said, when Arden came to him for a few minutes' rest. "I should never have suspected you of being such a ripper."

66 Did you think I was a muff in everything?"

"No, no; of course not! Only, you see, when one knows that a man is a bookworm

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"One supposes him an all-round incapable. Well, will you back me against Manville?"

"No, for there is always the question of weight and size. I would as soon back you against the Russian bear you say he represented last night. But if a duel is inevitable

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"It is inevitable. If you won't act for me, I must find some one else."

"Then I'll see you through it."

Colonel Manville's friend, Monsieur Leclair, appeared at the hotel as the clock of St. Sulpice struck the hour. He was a Frenchman, small, sinister-looking, and elaborately polite. He spoke no English, but the cosmopolitan Smythe was as much at his ease in French, German, and Spanish, as

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