he could not explain to himself, until he found them flagging; and flagging so fast that he sought a reason.  Then Dunborough’s point beginning to waver, and his feet to slip, Sir George’s eyes were opened; he discerned a crimson patch spread and spread on the other’s side—­where unnoticed Dunborough had kept his hand—­and with a cry for help he sprang forward in time to catch the falling man in his arms.

As the others ran in, the surgeons quickly and silently, Lord Almeric more slowly, and with exclamations, Sir George lowered his burden gently to the ground.  The instant it was done, Morris touched his arm and signed to him to stand back.  ‘You can do no good, Sir George,’ he urged.  ’He is in skilful hands.  He would have it; it was his own fault.  I can bear witness that you did your best not to touch him.’

‘I did not touch him,’ Soane muttered.

The second looked his astonishment.  ‘How?’ he said.  ’You don’t mean to say that he is not wounded?  See there!’ And he pointed to the blood which dyed the shirt.  They were cutting the linen away.

‘It was the pistol,’ Sir George answered.

Major Morris’s face fell, and he groaned.  ‘Good G—­d!’ he said, staring before him.  ’What a position I am in!  I suppose—­I suppose, sir, his pistol was not primed?’

‘I am afraid not,’ Soane answered.

He was still in his shirt, and bareheaded; but as he spoke one of several onlookers, whom the clatter of steel had drawn to the spot, brought his coat and waistcoat, and held them while he put them on.  Another handed his hat and wig, a third brought his shoes and knelt and buckled them; a fourth his kerchief.  All these services he accepted freely, and was unconscious of them—­as unconscious as he was of the eager deference, the morbid interest, with which they waited on him, eyed him, and stared at him.  His own thoughts, eyes, attention, were fixed on the group about the fallen man; and when the elder surgeon glanced over his shoulder, as wanting help, he strode to them.

‘If we had a chair here, and could move him at once,’ the smug gentleman whispered, ‘I think we might do.’

‘I have a chair.  It is at the gate,’ his colleague answered.

‘Have you?  A good thought of yours!’

‘The credit should lie—­with my employer,’ the younger man answered in a low voice.  ’It was his thought; here it comes.  Sir George, will you be good enough—­’ But then, seeing the baronet’s look of mute anxiety, he broke off.  ‘It is dangerous, but there is hope—­fair hope,’ he answered.  ’Do you, my dear sir, go to your inn, and I will send thither when he is safely housed.  You can do no good here, and your presence may excite him when he recovers from the swoon.’

Sir George, seeing the wisdom of the advice, nodded assent; and remarking for the first time the sensation of which he was the centre, was glad to make the best of his way towards the gates.  He had barely reached them—­without shaking off a knot of the more curious, who still hung on his footsteps—­when Lord Almeric, breathless and agitated, came up with him.