While we were still talking over the matter, the waiter announced that a gentleman desired to speak with me, and I ordered him to be shown in, expecting to see Mr. Somers. The visitor, however, was a stranger, but his business was soon explained. He came on the part of Mr. Alfred Wild, he said, to ask the name of any friend with whom he could arrange the preliminaries of a meeting, which I must perceive was inevitable. I immediately pointed to my friend B----, and informed Captain Truro that we had been already talking over the matter, and then whispering to B---- not to let the meeting be deferred beyond the next morning, I left them together, retiring to my own bed-room. In about ten minutes B---- called me, and informed me that the hour and place had been fixed for six, on Wandsworth Common. Captain Truro was gone, and my friend remained with me some time, making every sort of necessary arrangement, but he remarked my eye often resting upon Emily's letter, and kindly said, "You must not think of that letter, Young. I dare say Miss Somers will view the matter in a different light when she finds that you have not been the challenger." "No, no!" replied I, "in her opinion it will be just the same. But as you say, I must not think of the letter, for I have but one course before me. I do not feel at all inclined to let such a scoundrel escape, and I cannot do so if I would; for not to fire at him would be tacitly to acknowledge that I felt myself in the wrong." "I am afraid it might be so construed, indeed!" replied my friend; "but at all events take my advice, and make up your mind exactly how you are to act, for I have known very fatal consequences ensue from hesitation in such circumstances." The rest of the day past much as may be imagined. I was agitated, undoubtedly; but it was with strong contending passions. I had some faint conviction that Emily was in the right, and that to kill another in a duel was as much murder as to slay a fellow-creature under the influence of any passion whatever. Against this thought I had nothing to support me but the world's opinion; and in order to feel as little like a murderer as possible, I strove to forget the injuries I had received, and to think that I was only acting in conformity to the code of honour; but still, whenever my mind dwelt upon Alfred Wild, and I thought of how nearly he had deprived me of Emily, or fancied that he might still bar my way to her I loved so deeply, I felt passions rising up in my bosom which I trembled to examine. I tried then to occupy my mind with the expectation of Mr. Somers's visit; but he never came, and at dinner my friend B---- returned, having determined to sleep at the Clarendon that night, that his early rising might not alarm his own family, and perhaps produce some interruption of our proceedings.