'Mr Glenmurray! Sir Patrick!' exclaimed the agitated Adeline: 'for my sake, for pity's sake desist!'
'For the present I will, madam,' faltered out Sir Patrick;—'but I know Mr Glenmurray's address, and he shall hear from me.'
'Hear from you! Why, you do not mean to challenge him? you can't suppose Mr Glenmurray would do so absurd a thing as fight a duel? Sir, he has written a volume to prove the absurdity of the custom.—No, no! you threaten his life in vain,' she added, giving her hand to Glenmurray; who, in the tenderness of the action and the tone of her voice, forgot the displeasure which her inadvertency had caused, and pressing her hand to his lips, secretly renewed his vows of unalterable attachment.
'Very well, madam,' exclaimed Sir Patrick in a tone of pique: 'then, so as Mr Glenmurray's life is safe, you care not what becomes of mine!'
'Sir,' replied Adeline, 'the safety of a fellow-creature is always of importance in my eyes.'
'Then you care for me as a fellow-creature only,' retorted Sir Patrick, 'not as Sir Patrick O'Carrol?—Mighty fine, truly, you dear ungrateful—' seizing her hand; which he relinquished, as well as the rest of his speech, on the entrance of Mrs Mowbray.
Soon after Adeline left the room, and Glenmurray bowed and retired; while Sir Patrick, having first repeated his vows of admiration to the mother, returned home to muse on the charms of the daughter, and the necessity of challenging the moral Glenmurray.
Sir Patrick was a man of courage, and had fought several duels: but as life at this time had a great many charms for him, he resolved to defer at least putting himself in the way of getting rid of it; and after having slept late in the morning, to make up for the loss of sleep in the night, occasioned by his various cogitations, he rose, resolved to go to Mrs Mowbray's, and if he had an opportunity, indulge himself in some practical comments on the singular declaration made the evening before by her lovely daughter.
Glenmurray meanwhile had passed the night in equal watchfulness and greater agitation. To fight a duel would be, as Adeline observed, contrary to his principles; and to decline one, irritated as he was against Sir Patrick, was repugnant to his feelings.
To no purpose did he peruse and re-peruse nearly the whole of his own book against duelling; he had few religious restraints to make him resolve on declining a challenge, and he felt moral ones of little avail: but in vain did he sit at home till the morning was far advanced, expecting a messenger from Sir Patrick;—no messenger came:—he therefore left word with his servant, that, if wanted, he might be found at Mrs Mowbray's, and went thither, in hopes of enjoying an hour's conversation with Adeline; resolving to hint to her, as delicately as he could, that the opinions which she had expressed were better confined, in the present dark state of the public mind, to a select and discriminating circle.