He closed his eyes wearily, and appeared to be falling asleep. I touched him on the shoulder, and he sprang to his feet like one dazed, brushing against the bracket and making the flame of the lamp spirt up with a sudden flare. Once or twice he walked to and fro in the room, as though ordering his speech. "Here is the kernel of the matter," said he at last, coming back to the bench. "I was arrested to serve no ends of justice, but the vilest treachery and cowardice that man ever heard of. The tale, in truth, seems well-nigh inconceivable. Even I, who have sounding evidence of its truth," and he kicked one of his feet, so that the links of the fetters rattled on the floor, "even I find it hard to believe that 'tis more than a monstrous fable. The man called himself my friend." "It was Count Lukstein, then?" "How did you find out that? Vincott could not have told you." "He did not tell me, but yet he gave me to know it." "Yes, it was Count Lukstein. He laid the information to spare himself a duel and to get rid of--well, of an obstacle. I meant to kill him. I should have killed him, and he knew it. The duel was arranged secretly on the afternoon of Saturday, the ninth; the spot chosen--a dip in the hill, solitary and unfrequented even at midday, for the descent is steep--and the time six o'clock on the Sunday morning. And yet there I was taken, on the very ground, at six o'clock on a Sunday morning--raining, too!" "There seems little doubt." "There is no doubt. 'Twas his life or mine. The dispute was the mere pretext and occasion of the duel." "So I understood." I was beginning to understand, besides, that the facts which Mr. Vincott had intended to impart to me were somewhat more numerous than he thought fit to admit. "The cause--but I can't speak of that. In any case, 'twas his life or mine, and he knew it, so deemed it prudent to take mine, since he had the power, without risking his own." "But," I objected, "could you trust your seconds? They knew the time, the place----" "But they did not know I was sheltering Monmouth's fugitives. Lukstein knew it." "You told him?" "No!" He stopped abruptly, and his eyes fell from my face to the ground. And then he said, in a very sad and quiet voice: "But I have none the less sure proof he knew." He sat silent with bowed head, labouring his breath, and his hands lying clasped together upon his knees. I noticed that the tips of his fingers were pressed tight into the backs of his palms, so that the flesh about them looked dead. I leaned forward and took him gently by the arm. "You must deliver me that proof, Julian," said I. For I began to have a pretty sure inkling of the service he had it in his mind to require of me. He shifted his eyes to my face and then back again to the floor.