She knew the nature of a duel.  ‘It is the work of soulless creatures!’ she broke through my stammered explanations with unwonted impatience, and pressing my hand:  ’Ah!  You are safe.  I have you still.  Do you know, Harry, I am not yet able to endure accidents and misadventures:  I have not fortitude to meet them, or intelligence to account for them.  They are little ironical laughter.  Say we build so high:  the lightning strikes us:—­why build at all?  The Summer fly is happier.  If I had lost you!  I can almost imagine that I should have asked for revenge.  For why should the bravest and purest soul of my worship be snatched away?  I am not talking wisdom, only my shaken self will speak just now!  I pardon Otto, though he has behaved basely.’

‘No, not basely,’ I felt bound to plead on his behalf, thinking, in spite of a veritable anguish of gathering dread, that she had become enlightened and would soon take the common view of our case; ’not basely.  He was excessively irritated, without cause in my opinion; he simply misunderstood certain matters.  Dearest, you have nations fighting:  a war is only an exaggerated form of duelling.’

‘Nations at war are wild beasts,’ she replied.  ’The passions of these hordes of men are not an example for a living soul.  Our souls grow up to the light:  we must keep eye on the light, and look no lower.  Nations appear to me to have no worse than a soiled mirror of themselves in mobs.  They are still uncivilized:  they still bear a resemblance to the old monsters of the mud.  Do you not see their claws and fangs, Harry?  Do you find an apology in their acts for intemperate conduct?  Men who fight duels appear in my sight no nobler than the first desperate creatures spelling the cruel A B C of the passions.’

‘No, nor in mine,’ I assented hastily.  ’We are not perfect.  But hear me.  Yes, the passions are cruel.  Circumstances however—­I mean, there are social usages—­Ay, if one were always looking up t.  But should we not be gentle with our comparisons if we would have our views in proportion?’

She hung studiously silent, and I pursued: 

’I trust you so much as my helper and my friend that I tell you what we do not usually tell to women—­the facts, and the names connected with them.  Sooner or later you would have learnt everything.  Beloved, I do not wait to let you hear it by degrees, to be reconciled to it piecemeal.’

‘And I forgive him,’ she sighed.  ’I scarcely bring myself to believe that Harry has bled from Otto’s hand.’

‘It was the accident of the case, Ottilia.  We had to meet.’

‘To meet?’

’There are circumstances when men will not accept apologies; they—­we—­heaven knows, I was ready to do all that a man could do to avoid this folly—­wickedness; give it the worst of titles!’

‘It did not occur accidentally?’ she inquired.  Her voice sounded strange, half withheld in the utterance.