“'This is the seventeenth day,' said he, sighing. 'Caffarelli of course told you fever--but here it is;' and he turned on his side and showed me a great mass of appliances and bandages. 'I have been wounded. I went out with a fellow whom none of my friends would consent to my meeting, and I was obliged to take my valet Fenton for my second, and he, not much versed in these matters, accepted the Neapolitan sword instead of the French one. I had not touched one these eight years. At all events, my antagonist was an expert swordsman,--I suspect, in this style of fencing, more than my equal; he certainly was cooler, and took a thrust I gave him through the fore-arm without ever owning he was wounded till he saw me fall.' “'Plucky fellow,' muttered I. “'Yes, pluck he has, unquestionably; nor did he behave badly when all was over, for though it was as much as his neck was worth to do it, he offered to support me in the carriage all the way back to Naples.' “'That was a noble offer,' said I. “'And there never was a less noble antagonist!' cried Maitland, with a bitter laugh. 'Indeed, if it ever should get abroad that I crossed swords with him, it would go near to deny me the power of demanding a similar satisfaction from one of my own rank to-morrow. Do not ask me who he is, Lyle; do not question me about the quarrel itself. It is the thinking, the brooding over these things as I lie here, that makes this bed a torture to me. The surgeon and his probes are not pleasant visitors, but I welcome them when they divert my thoughts from these musings.' “I did my best to rally him, and get him to talk of the future, when he should be up and about again. I almost thought I had done him some little good, when Caffarelli came in to warn me that the doctors were imperative against his receiving any visitors, and I had been there then full two hours! “'I have told Lyle, said he, as we were leaving the room, 'that you must let him come and see me to-morrow; there are other things I want to talk over with him.'