By degrees he grew aware of a little consolatory touch, like the point of a needle, in his consciousness.  Laxley would certainly insult him!  In that case he would not refuse to fight him.  The darkness broke and revealed this happy prospect, and Evan held to it an hour, and could hardly reject it when better thoughts conquered.  For would it not be sweet to make the strength of his arm respected?  He took a stick, and ran his eye musingly along the length, trifling with it grimly.  The great Mel had been his son’s instructor in the chivalrous science of fence, and a maitre d’armes in Portugal had given him polish.  In Mel’s time duels with swords had been occasionally fought, and Evan looked on the sword as the weapon of combat.  Face to face with his adversary—­what then were birth or position?  Action!—­action! he sighed for it, as I have done since I came to know that his history must be morally developed.  A glow of bitter pleasure exalted him when, after hot passages, and parryings and thrusts, he had disarmed Ferdinand Laxley, and bestowing on him his life, said:  ’Accept this worthy gift of the son of a tailor!’ and he wiped his sword, haply bound up his wrist, and stalked off the ground, the vindicator of man’s natural dignity.  And then he turned upon himself with laughter, discovering a most wholesome power, barely to be suspected in him yet; but of all the children of glittering Mel and his solid mate, Evan was the best mixed compound of his parents.

He put the stick back in its corner and eyed his wrist, as if he had really just gone through the pretty scene he had just laughed at.  It was nigh upon reality, for it suggested the employment of a handkerchief, and he went to a place and drew forth one that had the stain of his blood on it, and the name of Rose at one end.  The beloved name was half-blotted by the dull-red mark, and at that sight a strange tenderness took hold of Evan.  His passions became dead and of old date.  This, then, would be his for ever!  Love, for whom earth had been too small, crept exultingly into a nut-shell.  He clasped the treasure on his breast, and saw a life beyond his parting with her.

Strengthened thus, he wrote by the morning light to Laxley.  The letter was brief, and said simply that the act of which Laxley had been accused, Evan Harrington was responsible for.  The latter expressed regret that Laxley should have fallen under a false charge, and, at the same time, indicated that if Laxley considered himself personally aggrieved, the writer was at his disposal.

A messenger had now to be found to convey it to the village-inn.  Footmen were stirring about the house, and one meeting Evan close by his door, observed with demure grin, that he could not find the gentleman’s nether-garments.  The gentleman, it appeared, was Mr. John Raikes, who according to report, had been furnished with a bed at the house, because of a discovery, made at a late period over-night, that