both made it, they had both seen it, and they both knew what it
was. It was not a movement of anger at being interrupted. Say or
think what they would, it was a movement of relief. A force
within them, and yet quite beyond them, seemed slowly and
pitilessly washing away the adamant of their oath. As mistaken
lovers might watch the inevitable sunset of first love, these men
watched the sunset of their first hatred.

Their hearts were growing weaker and weaker against each other.
When their weapons rang and riposted in the little London garden,
they could have been very certain that if a third party had
interrupted them something at least would have happened. They
would have killed each other or they would have killed him. But
now nothing could undo or deny that flash of fact, that for a
second they had been glad to be interrupted. Some new and strange
thing was rising higher and higher in their hearts like a high
sea at night. It was something that seemed all the more
merciless, because it might turn out an enormous mercy. Was
there, perhaps, some such fatalism in friendship as all lovers
talk about in love? Did God make men love each other against
their will?

"I'm sure you'll excuse my speaking to you," said the stranger,
in a voice at once eager and deprecating.

The voice was too polite for good manners. It was incongruous
with the eccentric spectacle of the duellists which ought to have
startled a sane and free man. It was also incongruous with the
full and healthy, though rather loose physique of the man who
spoke. At the first glance he looked a fine animal, with curling