"Yes," said the Colonel; "it is horrible, Dick, and the remembrance that the man was an utter scoundrel does not make the fact much less horrible after all these years." They walked on for some distance in silence, before Richard Linnell broke in upon his companion's reverie. "Was the duel about--a lady?" The Colonel uttered a harsh laugh. "It's an arrangement of nature, my dear Ulysses," he said. "If you see a couple of stags smashing their antlers, a couple of bulls goring each other, or two rams battering one another's heads, a brace of pheasants or barn-door cocks pecking and spurring each other to death, what's it about? A lady. The same with mankind, Dick; a duel is almost invariably more or less directly about a lady." Richard Linnell went on thoughtfully for a time, and then turned with a sad smile to the Colonel. "So even you had to do battle once in such a cause?" "Not exactly, Dick; it was upon another's behalf. An utter scoundrel, just such a fellow as Rockley, did my best friend a mortal wrong. One day, Dick, it was a happy, peaceful home that I used to visit, where as sweet-natured, true, and gentle a man as ever breathed lived in happy trust and faith in his sweet young wife; the next there was a stain--an indelible stain--upon that hearth-stone, and my poor friend lay stricken down by the shock, and nearly died of the brain fever that ensued." Richard Linnell looked at him with a curious feeling of horror--he knew not why--troubling his breast. "Do you want to know any more?" said the Colonel roughly. "Yes; go on." "I did not see either of them for two years: the young wife or the scoundrel I had introduced to the house as my friend. Then I had a letter from the lady--a piteous, appealing letter to me to help her. She told me she was starving in London, Dick, and that the villain who had won her into leaving her home had forsaken her at the end of six months, and that, since then, she had been striving to get a living by teaching, but that now she was prostrate on a sick bed, helpless and alone." There was a few moments' pause, and then the Colonel went on: "I went to see her, Dick--poor, little, weak woman. Her good looks were gone, and she lay sick unto death for want of medical help and ordinary nutriment." The Colonel stopped again, for his mouth seemed dry, and he passed his tongue over his fevered lips before he went on. "I did what was necessary, and went straight to the man who had done all this wrong. I told him everything, and that it was his duty to make some reparation at least by providing for the lady's needs, and ensuring that she should not want in the future." "Well?" said Richard hoarsely. "He laughed at me. He refused so utterly that I lost my temper and called him villain and scoundrel. He retorted by insulting me with a vile charge as to the cause of my taking an interest in that poor woman, and he struck me, and then--" "Well," said Richard, "and then?"