In the interim, at your service,
                                                       NEIL SEMPLE.

He had already selected Adrian Beekman as his second.  He was a young man of wealth and good family, exceedingly anxious for social distinction, and, moreover, so fastidiously honourable that Neil felt himself in his hands to be beyond reproach.  As he anticipated, Beekman accepted the duty with alacrity, and, indeed, so promptly carried out his principal’s instructions, that he found Captain Hyde still sleeping when he waited upon him.  But Hyde was neither astonished nor annoyed.  He laughed lightly at “Mr. Semple’s impatience of offence,” and directed Mr. Beekman to Captain Earle as his second; leaving the choice of swords and of the ground entirely to his direction.

“A more civil, agreeable, handsome gentleman, impossible it would be to find; and I think the hot haughty temper of Neil is to blame in this affair,” was Beekman’s private comment.  But he stood watchfully by his principal’s interests, and affected a gentlemanly disapproval of Captain Hyde’s behaviour.

And lightly as Hyde had taken the challenge, he was really more disinclined to fight than Neil was.  In his heart he knew that Semple had a just cause of anger; “but then,” he argued, “Neil is a proud, pompous fellow, for whom I never assumed a friendship.  His father’s hospitality I regret in any way to have abused; but who the deuce could have suspected that Neil Semple was in love with the adorable Katherine?  In faith, I did not at the first, and now ’tis too late.  I would not resign the girl for my life; for I am sensible that life, if she is another’s, will be a very tedious thing to me.”

All day Neil was busy in making his will, and in disposing of his affairs.  He knew himself well enough to be certain, that, if he struck the first blow, he would not hesitate to strike the death blow, and that nothing less than such conclusion would satisfy him.  Hyde also anticipated a deathly persistence of animosity in his opponent, and felt equally the necessity for some definite arrangement of his business.  Unfortunately, it was in a very confused state.  He owed many debts of honour, and Cohen’s bill was yet unsettled.  He drank a cup of coffee, wrote several important letters, and then went to Fraunce’s, and had a steak and a bottle of wine.  During his meal his thoughts wandered between Katherine and the Jew Cohen.  After it he went straight to Cohen’s store.

It happened to be Saturday; and the shutters were closed, though the door was slightly open, and Cohen was sitting with his granddaughter in the cool shadows of the crowded place.  Hyde was not in a ceremonious mood, and he took no thought of it being the Jew’s sabbath.  He pushed wider the door, and went clattering into their presence; and with an air of pride and annoyance the Jew rose to meet him.  At the same time, by a quick look of intelligence, he dismissed Miriam; but she did not retreat farther than within the deeper shadows of some curtains of stamped Moorish leather, for she anticipated the immediate departure of the intruder.