He lay still, telling himself that this dreadful nightmare would pass,
would fade in the light of common day.

His servant came in noiselessly with a cup of coffee and a little sheaf
of letters.

He pretended to be asleep; but when the man had gone he put out his
shaking hand for the coffee and drank it.

The mist before his mind gradually lifted. Gradually, too, the horror on
his face whitened to despair, as a twilight meadow whitens beneath the
evening frost. He had drawn the short lighter. Nothing in heaven or
earth could alter that fact.

He did not stop to wonder how Lord Newhaven had become aware of his own
dishonor, or at the strange weapon with which he had avenged himself. He
went over every detail of his encounter with him in the study. His hand
had been forced. He had been thrust into a vile position. He ought to
have refused to draw. He did not agree to draw. Nevertheless, he had
drawn. And Hugh knew that, if it had to be done again, he should again
have been compelled to draw by the iron will before which his was as
straw. He could not have met the scorn of those terrible half-closed
eyes if he had refused.

"There was no help for it," said Hugh, half aloud. And yet to die by his
own hand within five months! It was incredible. It was preposterous.

"I never agreed to it," he said, passionately.

_Nevertheless, he had drawn_. The remembrance ever returned to lay its