"You must answer me, please. You must answer me. What is the matter? I am asking you who you are."
Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that one contestant drove the other the length of the room and had him pinned against the wall:—
Into Audrey's bewilderment, the dreadful sickness and the trembling she could not control, these sharp demands came like numbing blows upon one in the trough of the sea grappling for life. When Roly had come to her as she lay stupefied and she had answered him "Yes, Roly," he had told her clearly as if in fact he had stood beside her, what she should say to Gran. She had come with the words prepared. They suddenly returned to her now.
The words she had made ready: "I am Audrey—" she said.
Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that the one contestant, having his rival pinned, was too impetuous and ran upon the other's sword:—
Lady Burdon said: "Audrey? Do you say Audrey? Are you known here?"
And ran upon the other's sword:—
"I am Audrey—I am Roly's wife."
II
As a dreadful blow sends the stricken, hands to face, staggering this way and that on nerveless, aimless legs; or as a tipsy man, unbalanced by fresh air, will blunder into any open door, so, at that "I am Audrey—I am Roly's wife"—Lady Burdon's mind was sent reeling, fumbling through a maze of spinning scenes—marriage? and what then?—before it could fix itself to realisation.