O’Neil smiled faintly, and once again held out his hand. Warenne shook it warmly, and immediately proceeded on his return to ——, that he might procure further assistance, and the means of conveyance for his former foe. As he turned to leave him, he laid his hand, as he supposed, on Stuart’s arm for support—it was Frank’s! Poor Frank had slept but for an instant, and on awakening, had sought his brother’s apartment. Finding that he was gone out, he had immediately ran down, through the court-yard of the inn, to a spot in the high road from whence he could command a view over the adjacent country, where catching a glimpse of two figures, about a mile from him, quitting the beaten track, he had rightly conjectured they were Stuart and his principal. He followed as fast as he was able, and arrived on the ground just in time to see O’Neil fall. He had then stolen up during the interval of confusion which ensued, and behind his brother had awaited the surgeon’s decision. Warenne recognised Frank, but simply pressed his arm with affection. His heart was too full for utterance, and the silence was not broken, until the latter exclaimed, “Thank God! Gerald, you are yet spared to us!” “Thank God, indeed!” replied the other. The deep but subdued tone of his voice expressing the sincerity with which he acknowledged the mercy of that Being, not only in preserving his life from destruction, but his conscience from a horrible crime. Stuart soon afterwards joined them. “Warenne,” said he, “I congratulate you on being so well out of this business; for the wound in your arm is a trifle. Of all life’s disagreeable accidents, in my opinion, there is nothing so unpleasant as a duel; nothing so unsatisfactory; nothing—I beg your pardon—so foolish.” “Do not beg my pardon,” replied Warenne; “all you say is true, and if the encounter ends in the death of either party, nothing so dreadful, both with regard to him who is hurried from the very act of sin, into the presence of his Maker, and to him who survives, to wear out a melancholy existence in unavailing remorse.” Such weak and unstable creatures are we! Knowing the better line of conduct, but preferring the worse; afraid of the breath of our own species, who can only hurt the body, yet scrupling not to incur the anger of Him who can destroy both body and soul. Warenne, a man of excellent principles, of commanding talents, and in the habit of controlling his passions, though he acknowledged the heinousness of the offence he was about to commit, and though he avowed his obligations to obey the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill!” could not subdue his worldly pride, but shrank from the danger of disgrace. A quarter of an hour’s walk brought the party to their quarters; and Warenne, having thanked his old friend Stuart for the kind fulfilment of the disagreeable office which had devolved upon him, retired with Frank to his apartment.