A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the inner door; and finally the outer one closed with a concussion which shook the entire building.

A few minutes afterward a belated farmer’s boy met a light wagon which was being driven furiously toward the town of Marshall.  He declared that behind the two figures on the front seat stood a third, with its hands upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who appeared to struggle vainly to free themselves from its grasp.  This figure, unlike the others, was clad in white, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed the haunted house.  As the lad could boast a considerable former experience with the supernatural thereabouts his word had the weight justly due to the testimony of an expert.  The story (in connection with the next day’s events) eventually appeared in the Advance, with some slight literary embellishments and a concluding intimation that the gentlemen referred to would be allowed the use of the paper’s columns for their version of the night’s adventure.  But the privilege remained without a claimant.

II

The events that led up to this “duel in the dark” were simple enough.  One evening three young men of the town of Marshall were sitting in a quiet corner of the porch of the village hotel, smoking and discussing such matters as three educated young men of a Southern village would naturally find interesting.  Their names were King, Sancher and Rosser.  At a little distance, within easy hearing, but taking no part in the conversation, sat a fourth.  He was a stranger to the others.  They merely knew that on his arrival by the stage-coach that afternoon he had written in the hotel register the name Robert Grossmith.  He had not been observed to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk.  He seemed, indeed, singularly fond of his own company—­or, as the personnel of the Advance expressed it, “grossly addicted to evil associations.”  But then it should be said in justice to the stranger that the personnel was himself of a too convivial disposition fairly to judge one differently gifted, and had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in an effort at an “interview.”

“I hate any kind of deformity in a woman,” said King, “whether natural or—­acquired.  I have a theory that any physical defect has its correlative mental and moral defect.”

“I infer, then,” said Rosser, gravely, “that a lady lacking the moral advantage of a nose would find the struggle to become Mrs. King an arduous enterprise.”

“Of course you may put it that way,” was the reply; “but, seriously, I once threw over a most charming girl on learning quite accidentally that she had suffered amputation of a toe.  My conduct was brutal if you like, but if I had married that girl I should have been miserable for life and should have made her so.”

“Whereas,” said Sancher, with a light laugh, “by marrying a gentleman of more liberal views she escaped with a parted throat.”