Willits gazed at him with a certain ill-concealed contempt on his face.  He was at the time loosening the white silk scarf about his throat in preparation for the expected encounter.  He evidently did not believe a word of that part of the statement which referred to Harry’s engagement.  If Kate had been engaged to Harry she would have told him so.

“You are only wasting your time, Mr. Temple,” he answered with an impatient lift of his chin as he stripped his coat from his broad shoulders.  “You have just said there is only one way to settle this—­I am ready—­so are my friends.  You will please meet me outside—­there is plenty of firelight under the trees, and the sooner we get through this the better.  The apology should not come from me, and will not.  Come, gentlemen,” and he stepped out into the now drizzling night, the glare of the torches falling on his determined face and white shirt as he strode down the path followed by his seconds.

Seven gentlemen hurriedly gathered together, one a doctor and another in full possession of a mahogany case containing two duelling pistols with their accompanying ammunition, G. D. gun caps, powder-horn, swabs and rammers, and it past eleven o’clock at night, would have excited but little interest to the average darky—­especially one unaccustomed to the portents and outcomes of such proceedings.

Not so Alec, who had absorbed the situation at a glance.  He had accompanied his master on two such occasions—­one at Bladensburg and the other on a neighboring estate, when the same suggestive tokens had been visible, except that those fights took place at daybreak, and after every requirement of the code had been complied with, instead of under the flare of smoking pine torches and within a step of the contestant’s front door.  He had, besides, a most intimate knowledge of the contents of the mahogany case, it being part of his duty to see that these defenders of the honor of all the Rutters—­and they had been in frequent use—­were kept constantly oiled and cleaned.  He had even cast some bullets the month before under the colonel’s direction.  That he was present to-night was entirely due to the fact that having made a short cut to the kitchen door in order to hurry some dishes, he had by the merest chance, and at the precise psychological moment, run bump up against the warlike party just before they had reached the duelling ground.  This was a well-lighted path but a stone’s throw from the porch, and sufficiently hidden by shrubbery to be out of sight of the ballroom windows.

The next moment the old man was in full cry to the house.  He had heard the beginning of the trouble while he was carrying out St. George’s orders regarding the two half-emptied bowls of punch and understood exactly what was going to happen, and why.

“Got de colonel’s pistols!” he choked as he sped along the gravel walk toward the front door the quicker to reach the ballroom—­“and Marse Harry nothin’ but a baby!  Gor-a-Mighty!  Gor-a-Mighty!” Had they all been grown-ups he might not have minded—­but his “Marse Harry,” the child he brought up, his idol—­his chum!—­“Fo’ Gawd, dey sha’n’t kill ’im—­dey sha’n’t!—­Dey sha’n’t!!”