"Nonsense," replied Allington, "you shall do no such thing. In the first place, I can't spare you; and in the next, if we can irretrievably disgrace Medwin, so that he may be shunned by everybody, I do not think the weak head of my Clara can withstand the storm; and she will gradually learn to despise him, too. So take no further notice of this matter; for a blow from a published coward carries no more disgrace with it than a bite from a dog, or a kick from an ass. You must help me out with my plans, too, in behalf of my charming heiress, and I'll be sure to remember you in my will. Let's take a julep." For three days Medwin waited in an agony of impatience to hear from St. Maur, but not a word came--and he began to despair. Everywhere he went he was regarded with significant glances, and pointed at, while a disdainful whisper ran round the room, in which he could always distinguish the words, "white-livered Yankee," "coward," or some equally obnoxious epithet. He saw the cruel game that was playing against him. He had forgotten that, in refusing to fight with Allington, he had rendered it perfectly safe for every whipster in the community to insult him; and he now became suddenly aware that he had involved himself in a dilemma from which it was impossible for him to escape. In the midst of these reflections--while life had become intolerable, and infamy and disgrace dogged his steps like a shadow--he never entertained a doubt of Clara's love and constancy, and looked forward to the time when he might claim her as his bride, and, amid the milder and manlier associations of his youth, regain that calmness and self-respect which he had here so strangely lost. His position was, in truth, a most wretched one. Opposed to the barbarous practice of dueling, circumstances and his own loss of self-control had forced him to _accept_ a challenge, and then recall that acceptance, and to offer an insult to a stranger, for the express purpose of drawing out another.