I called to Cliffe, who stood with his back towards us a little distance off, and ran to where I had laid my coat and cravat before the duel commenced. For the cravat was of soft muslin, and might, I fancied, be of some use as lint. With this in my hand, I hurried back. Cliffe was lifting Marston from the ground.
"Best let him lie there quietly," I said.
He turned the body over upon its back.
"Aye!" he answered, "under God's sky."
I dropped on my knees beside the corpse, felt the pulse, laid my ear to the heart. The sun shone hot and bright upon his dead face. Cliffe took a handkerchief from his pocket, and gently placed it over Marston's eyes.
"This means a year on the Continent for you, my friend," he said.
When Elmscott and the surgeon arrived some half an hour later, they found me eating my breakfast in the kitchen.
"Where is he?" they asked.
"Who?" said I.
I remember vaguely that the surgeon looked at me with a certain anxiety, and made a remark to Elmscott. Then they went out of the room again. How long it was before they returned I have no notion. Elmscott brought in my coat, hat, and sword, and I got up to put them on; but the doctor checked him, and setting me again in my chair, bound up my arm, not without some resistance from me, for I saw that his hands were dabbled with Marston's blood.