"DEAR BERT:--I have learned what sad things have befallen. You will easily guess my informant; but I know you will not use your knowledge of my communication therewith, to the detriment thereof. And I am sure that, since I ask it, you will not betray (or, by any act or disclosure, imperil or hamper) the messenger who brings this at risk of his life; for the matter is a private one. "Pondering upon all that has occurred, I am put in a fear of your forgetting whose right it is to avenge it, and of your taking that duty to yourself, which belongs by every consideration to me. This is to beg, therefore, that you will not forestall me; that while I live you will leave this matter to me, at whatsoever cost though it be to your pride and your impatience. Dear Bert, I enjoin you, do not usurp my prerogative. By all the ties between us, past and to come, I demand this of you. _The man is mine to kill_. Let him wait my time, and I shall be the more, what I long have been, Ever thine, "PHILIP." I thought over it for a full minute. He asked of me a grievous disappointment; nay, something of a humiliation, too, so highly had I carried myself, so triumphant had my enemy Chubb become in anticipation, so derisive would he be in case of my withdrawal. If I receded, Chubb would have ground to think the message a device to get me out of a peril at the last moment, after I had pretended to face it so intrepidly thereunto. For I could not say what my letter contained, or who it was from, without betraying Meadows and perhaps Mr. Faringfield, which both Philip's injunction and my own will prohibited my doing. Thus, I hesitated awhile before yielding to Philip what he claimed so rightly as his own. But I am glad I had the courage to face Chubb's probable suspicions and possible contempt. "Gentlemen," said I, folding up the letter for concealment and preservation, "I am very sorry to have brought you out here for nothing. I must make some other kind of reparation to you, Captain Falconer. I can't fight you." There was a moment's pause; during which Lieutenant Chubb looked from me to his principal, with a mirthful grin, as much as to say I was a proven coward after all my swagger. But the captain merely replied: "Oh, let the matter rest as it is, then. I'm sorry I had to disappoint a lady, to come out here on a fool's errand, that's all." He made that speech with intention, I'm sure, by way of revenge upon me, though doubtless 'twas true enough; for he must have known how it would sting a man who thought kindly of Madge Faringfield. It was the first cutting thing I had ever heard him say; it showed that he was no longer unwilling to antagonise me; it proved that he, too, could throw off the gentleman when he chose: and it made him no longer difficult for me to hate. CHAPTER XVIII. _Philip Comes at Last to London._