"Long before the duel. She had no suspicion of the consequences of her words," he said hastily. "She had no hand in this plot."
"Why?" I repeated.
He looked at me, imploring mercy.
"I understand," said I.
"Ah, no!" he said quickly; "your suspicions outstrip the truth. I think so," and again with a curiously pleading voice, "I think so. The man purred more softly than the rest, and so she----"
He broke off in the middle of the sentence and began anew.
"I must lay the whole truth bare, I see that. Only the shame of it cuts into me like a knife."
He paused, and great beads of sweat broke out upon his forehead.
"I have told you that my dispute with Lukstein was no more than the pretext of our quarrel. She was the cause. How long their acquaintance had lasted I know not, or to what length of intimacy it had gone. Lukstein was as secret as a cat, and he taught her his duplicity. 'Twas I, myself, presented him to her formally when he came first to the Hotwell, but I think now the pair had met before in London. 'Twere too long to describe how my fears were aroused--an exchange of glances noted here, a letter in his hand dropped from a sachet there, a certain guarded hesitation she evinced when Lukstein and I were both with her, a word carelessly dropped showing knowledge of his movements; all trifles in themselves, but summed together a very weighty argument. So on the morning of the ninth, worn out with disquiet, I resolved to bring the matter to an issue, and I rode over to St. Vincent's rock. Lukstein was seated at an escritoire as I entered the room. I saw his face blanch and his hand fly to an open drawer, close, and lock it. He rose to greet me, and drew me to the window, which pleased me the more for that a bell stood upon the escritoire. I got between him and the bell and taxed him with his treachery. He denied it, larding me with friendly protestations. I backed to the escritoire and repeated the charge. He laughed at me for my unmanly lack of faith. With a sudden wrench I tore open the locked drawer. He bounded towards the bell; my sword was at his breast, and we stood watching one another while I rummaged with my left hand in the drawer.
"'You shall pay for this,' says he, very softly.