“But is it too late?” I asked, in a suddenly quieted voice.  That the brightness and beauty of Madge, which had been a part of my world since I could remember, should have gone from about us, all in a moment!—­’twas a new thought, and a strange one.  What a blank she left, what a dulness!

“Too late, heaven knows!” said my mother, drying her eyes with a handkerchief, and speaking brokenly.  “As soon as Mrs. Faringfield read the letters, which I had taken over at once, Fanny and Mr. Cornelius started running for the wharves.  But when they got there, the Phoebe wasn’t in sight.  It had sailed immediately their trunks were aboard, I suppose.  Oh, to think of pretty Madge—­what will become of her in that great, bad London?”

“She has made her plans, no doubt, and knows what she is doing,” said I, with a little bitterness.  “Poor Phil!  Her father is much to blame.”

When I told Tom, as soon as I reached the outpost, he gave a sudden, ghastly, startled look; then collected himself, and glanced at the sword with which he meant to fight that night.

“Why, I was afraid she would go,” said he, in a strained voice; and that was all.

Whenever I saw him during the rest of the evening, he was silent, pale, a little shaky methought.  He was not as I had been before my maiden duel:  blustering and gay, in a trance-like recklessness; assuming self-confidence so well as to deceive even myself and carry me buoyantly through.  He seemed rather in suspense like that of a lover who has to beg a stern father for a daughter’s hand.  As a slight hurt will cause a man the greatest pain, and a severe injury produce no greater, so will the apprehensions of a trivial ordeal equal in effect those of a matter of life and death; there being a limit to possible sensation, beyond which nature leaves us happily numb.  Sometimes, upon occasion, Tom smiled, but with a stiffness of countenance; when he laughed, it was in a short, jerky, mechanical manner.  As for me, I was in different mood from that preceding my own first trial of arms:  I was now overcast in spirit, tremulous, full of misgivings.

The moon did not disappoint us as we set out for the tavern.  There were but a few fleecy clouds, and these not of an opaqueness to darken its beams when they passed across it.  The snow was frozen hard in the fields, and worn down in the road.  The frost in the air bit our nostrils, and we now and again worked our countenances into strange grimaces, to free them from the sensation of being frozen hard.

“’Tis a beautiful night,” said Tom, speaking in more composure than he had shown during the early evening.  The moonlight had a calming effect, as the clear air had a bracing one.  His eyes roamed the sky, and then the moonlit, snow-clad earth—­hillock and valley, wood and pond, solitary house bespeaking indoor comfort, and a glimpse of the dark river in the distance—­and he added: 

“What a fine world it is!”