Lilburne stood aghast.

"That's wonderful!" said Marsden; "quite wonderful. Where the devil did
you get such a knack?--for it is only knack after all!"

"I lived for many years in a country where the practice was constant,
where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary accomplishment--
a country in which man had often to contend against the wild beast. In
civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the wild beast--but
we don't hunt him!--Lord Lilburne" (and this was added with a smiling and
disdainful whisper), "you must practise a little more."

But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne's morning
occupation was gone. He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont. As
soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols,
and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who was
no sportsman, generally spent his mornings.

He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire with
unusual vehemence,--

"Beaufort, I'm very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont. He's a very
ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!" Beaufort threw down his steward's
account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,--

"Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in the
house. As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but don't
you observe--you must observe--how like he is to the old family
portraits? The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance
grows upon me. In a word," said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, "if