Mr. Oakhurst was trembling with excitement, and the wineglass that he
returned to the table shivered between his fingers. Mr. Hamilton stood
there, grayish white, erect, and dripping. After a pause, he said
coldly,--

"So be it. But remember, our quarrel commences here. If I fall by your
hand, you shall not use it to clear her character: if you fall by mine,
you shall not be called a martyr. I am sorry it has come to this; but
amen, the sooner now, the better."

He turned proudly, dropped his lids over cold steel-blue eyes, as if
sheathing a rapier bowed, and passed coldly out.

They met, twelve hours later, in a little hollow two miles from the
hotel, on the Stockton road. As Mr. Oakhurst received his pistol from
Col. Starbottle's hands, he said to him in a low voice, "Whatever
turns up or down, I shall not return to the hotel. You will find some
directions in my room. Go there"--But his voice suddenly faltered,
and he turned his glistening eyes away, to his second's intense
astonishment. "I've been out a dozen times with Jack Oakhurst," said
Col. Starbottle afterward, "and I never saw him anyways cut before.
Blank me if I didn't think he was losing his sand, till he walked to
position."

The two reports were almost simultaneous. Mr. Oakhurst's right arm
dropped suddenly to his side, and his pistol would have fallen from
his paralyzed fingers; but the discipline of trained nerve and muscle
prevailed, and he kept his grasp until he had shifted it to the other
hand, without changing his position. Then there was a silence that
seemed interminable, a gathering of two or three dark figures where a