“Sir, do I understand you?” and he saw Faversham standing above him, in a quiver of excitement.

“You will hold your tongue, Captain Plessy, until I have finished.  I allowed you to read the letter, never thinking but that some pang of forgotten honour would paralyse your tongue.  You read it to the end.  You complain there is no art in it, that it has no delicate provocations, such as your own countrywomen would not fail to use.  It should be the more sacred on that account, and I am glad to believe that you misjudge your country women.  Captain Plessy, I acknowledge that as you read out that letter with its simple, friendly expression of gratitude for the spectacle of a brave man, I envied you heartily, I would have been very proud to have received it.  I would have much liked to know that some deed which I had done had made the world for a moment brighter to some one a long way off with whom I was not acquainted.  Captain Plessy, I shall not allow you to keep this letter.  You shall not read it aloud again.”

Faversham thrust the letter into the flame of the candle which stood between Plessy and himself.  Plessy sprang up and blew the candle out; but little colourless flames were already licking along the envelope.  Faversham held the letter downwards by a corner and the colourless flame flickered up into a tongue of yellow, the paper charred and curled in the track of the flames, the flames leapt to Faversham’s fingers; he dropped the burning letter on the floor and crushed it with his foot.  Then he looked at Plessy and waited.  He was as white as the table-cloth, his dark eyes seemed to have sunk into his head and burned unnaturally bright, every nerve in his body seemed to be twitching; he looked very like the young boy who used to sit at the dinner-table on Crimean nights and listen in a quiver to the appalling stories of his father’s guests.  As he had been silent then, so he was silent now.  He waited for Captain Plessy to speak.  Captain Plessy, however, was in no hurry to begin.  He had completely lost his air of contemptuous raillery, he was measuring Faversham warily with the eyes of a connoisseur.

“You have insulted me,” he said abruptly, and he heard again that indrawing of the breath which he had remarked that afternoon in the cellar.  He also heard Faversham speak immediately after he had drawn the breath.

“There are reparations for insults,” said Faversham.

Captain Plessy bowed.  He was now almost as sober as when he had sat down to his dinner.

“We will choose a time and place,” said he.

“There can be no better time than now,” suddenly cried Faversham, “no better place than this.  You have two friends of whom with your leave I will borrow one.  We have a large room and a candle apiece to fight by.  To-morrow my duties begin again.  We will fight to-night, Captain Plessy, to-night,” and he leaned forward almost feverishly, his words had almost the accent of a prayer.  The two subalterns rose from their chairs, but Plessy motioned them to keep still.  Then he seized the candle which he had himself blown out, lighted it from the candle at the far end of the table and held it up above his head so that the light fell clearly upon Faversham’s face.  He stood looking at Faversham for an appreciable time.  Then he said quietly,