"So!" thought I. "My time has come at last." And while I was yet turning
over in my mind how best to bait him, the lady passed out of earshot,
and I heard him say to the two, his comrades, that foul thing which I
would not repeat to Jennifer; a vile boast with which I may not soil my
page here for you.

"Oh, come, Sir Frank! that's too bad!" cried the younger of the twain;
and then I took two strides to front him fairly.

"Sir Francis Falconnet, you are a foul-lipped blackguard!" I said; and,
lest that should not be enough, I smote him in the face so that he fell
like an ox in the shambles.




III

IN WHICH MY ENEMY SCORES FIRST


True to his promise, Richard Jennifer met me in the cool gray birthlight
of the new day at a turn in the river road not above a mile or two from
the rendezvous, and thence we jogged on together.

After the greetings, which, as you may like to know, were grateful
enough on my part, I would fain inquire how the baronet had taken his
second's defection; but of this Jennifer would say little. He had broken
with his principal, whether in anger or not I could only guess; and one
of Falconnet's brother officers, that younger of the twain who had cried