When Mr. Idsleigh, a fashionable young buck whom I now recalled having once seen in the company of Lord March, had presented himself, a very brief explanation on Falconer’s part sufficed to enlist his services as second; whereupon the captain desired affably that he might be allowed to finish his letter, and Idsleigh and I retired to a compartment at the farther end of the room.  Idsleigh regarded me with disdainful indifference, and conducted his side of the preliminaries in a bored fashion, as if the affair were of even less consequence than Falconer had pretended to consider it.  He set me down as a nobody, a person quite out of the pale of polite society, and one whom it was proper to have done with in the shortest time, and with the fewest words, possible.  I was equally chary of speech, and it was speedily settled that our principals should fight with small swords, at sunrise, at a certain spot in Hyde Park; and Idsleigh undertook to provide a surgeon.  He then turned his back on me, and walked over to Falconer, without the slightest civility of leave-taking.

I went first in a hackney-coach to Hyde Park, to ascertain exactly the spot which Mr. Idsleigh had designated.  Having done so, I returned to Dean Street; and, in order that I might without suspicion accompany Philip before daybreak, I called at Madge’s lodgings, and suggested that my mother and Fanny should pass the night in her house (in which I had observed there were rooms to let) and take her to Hampstead the next day; while I should sleep at the tavern.  This plan was readily adopted.  Thereupon, rejoining Philip, I went with him to the Strand, where he engaged a post-chaise to be in waiting for him and me the next morning, for our flight in the event of the duel having the fatal termination he desired.

“We’ll take a hint from Captain Falconer’s threat,” said Phil:  “ride post to Hastings, and have the Doughty boys sail us across to France.  You’d best write a letter this evening, to leave at Madge’s lodgings after the affair, explaining your departure, to Fanny and your mother.  Afterward, you can either send for them to come to France, or you can return to Hampstead when the matter blows over.  I might have spared you these inconveniences and risks, by getting another second; but I knew you wouldn’t stand that.”

And there, indeed, he spoke the truth.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Last, and Most Eventful, of the History.

I took my mother and Fanny to the play that night, to see Madge act, and we three met her after the performance and were driven to her lodgings with her.  I then bade the ladies good-night, with a secret tenderness arising from the possibility, unknown to them, that our parting then might be for as many months as they supposed hours.

Returning to Philip at the tavern, I found he had passed the evening in writing letters; among others, one for me to copy in my own name, to be left at Madge’s lodgings in case of my having to flee the country for awhile.  It was so phrased that the result of the duel, whether in Philip’s death or his antagonist’s, could be told by the insertion of a single line, after its occurrence.