The door opened with an inrush of wind which caused his lamp to flicker.  Before him stood a slight and well-gowned woman, heavily veiled.  She was trembling.  He looked at her expectantly, but she did not speak.

“Please be seated, madam,” said the chief of police.

But she continued to stand.  Presently words came to her.  “Can you stop a duel?  Will you?” Her hands went out in a gesture of supplication, involuntary, unstudiedly dramatic.

“What do you mean?” he asked.  “What duel?”

“Senator Broderick ...  Justice Terry,” a wealth of hate was in her utterance of the second name.  “They fight at sunrise Monday morning.”

“It’s not our custom to—­interfere in such cases,” Burke said slowly.  “What would you have me do?  Arrest them?”

“Anything,” she cried.  “Oh—­ANYTHING!”

He looked at her searchingly.  “If you will raise your veil, madam, I will talk with you further.  Otherwise I must bid you goodnight.”

For a moment she stood motionless.  Then her hand went upward, stripped the covering from her features.  “Now,” she asked him, in a half-shamed whisper, “will you help me?”

“Yes ...  Mrs. Windham,” said Burke.

* * * * *

At daybreak on a raw, cold Monday morning, Broderick, with his seconds, Joe McKibben and Dave Colton, arrived at the upper end of Lake Merced.  Terry and his seconds were already waiting.  The principals, clad in long overcoats, did not salute each other.  Broderick looked toward the sea.  Terry stood implacable and silent, turning now and then to spit into the sun dried grass.  The seconds conferred with each other.  All seemed ready to begin when an officer, springing from a foam-flecked horse, rushed up to Broderick and shouted, “You are under arrest.”

Broderick turned half-bewildered.  He was very tired, for he had not slept the night before.  “Arrest?” he said blankly.

“You and Justice Terry,” said the officer; “I’ve warrants for ye both.  Come along and no nonsense.  This duel is stopped.”

Terry began an angry denunciation of the officer, but his seconds, Calhoun Benham and Colonel Thomas Hayes, persuaded him at length into a blustering submission.  Principals and seconds, feeling like the actors in an ill-considered farce, rode off together.  Later they were summoned to appear before Judge Coon.

* * * * *

“The whole thing was a farce,” Benito told his wife.  “The case was dismissed.  Our prosecuting counsel asked the judge to put them under bonds to keep the peace.  But he refused.”

“Then the fight will go on?” asked Alice.  Her face was white.

“Doubtless,” said Benito gloomily.  “They say that Terry’s been practicing with a pair of French pistols during the past two months and hopes to use them at the meeting.  Old ‘Natchez,’ the gunsmith, tells me one’s a tricky weapon ... discharges now and then before the trigger’s pressed.”