'This is cursed unlucky,' said Sir Patrick coolly: 'you have disabled my right arm. I can't go on with this business at present; but when I am well again command me. Your wound, I believe, is as slight as mine; but as I can walk, and you cannot, and as I have a chaise, and you not, you shall use it to convey you and your servant home, and I and mine will go on foot.'
To this obliging offer Glenmurray was incapable of giving denial; for he became insensible from loss of blood, and with the assistance of his antagonist was carried to the chaise, and supported by his terrified servant, conveyed back to Bath.
It is not to be supposed that an event of this nature should be long unknown. It was soon told all over the city that Sir Patrick O'Carrol and Mr Glenmurray had fought a duel, and that the latter was dangerously wounded; the quarrel having originated in Mr Glenmurray's scoffing at religion, king, and constitution, before the pious and loyal baronet.
This story soon reached the ears of Mrs Mowbray, who, in an agony of tender sorrow, and in defiance of all decorum, went in person to call on her admired Sir Patrick; and Adeline, who heard of the affair soon after, as regardless of appearances as her mother, and more alarmed, went in person to inquire concerning her wounded Glenmurray.
By the time that she had arrived at his lodgings, not only his own surgeon but Sir Patrick's had seen him, as his antagonist thought it necessary to ascertain the true state of his wound, that he might know whether he ought to stay, or fly his country.
The account of both the surgeons was, however, so favourable, and Glenmurray in all respects so well, that Sir Patrick's alarms were soon quite at an end; and the wounded man was lying on a sofa, lost in no very pleasant reflections, when Adeline knocked at his door. Glenmurray at that very moment was saying to himself, 'Well;—so much for principle and consistency! Now, my next step must be to marry, and then I shall have made myself a complete fool, and the worst of all fools,—a man presuming to instruct others by his precepts, when he finds them incapable of influencing even his own actions.'
At this moment his servant came up with Miss Mowbray's compliments, and, if he was well enough to see her, she would come up and speak to him.
In an instant all his self-reproaches were forgotten; and when Adeline hung weeping and silent on his shoulder, he could not but rejoice in an affair which had procured him a moment of such heartfelt delight. At first Adeline expressed nothing but terror at the consequences of his wound, and pity for his sufferings; but when she found that he was in no danger, and in very little pain, the tender mistress yielded to the severe monitress, and she began to upbraid Glenmurray for having acted not only in defiance of her wishes and principles, but of his own; of principles laid down by him to the world in the strongest point of view, and in a manner convincing to every mind.
'Dearest Adeline, consider the provocation,' cried Glenmurray:—'a gross insult offered to the woman I love!'
'But who ever fought a duel without provocation, Glenmurray? If provocation be a justification, your book was unnecessary; and did not you offer an insult to the understanding of the woman you love, in supposing that she could be obliged to you for playing the fool on her account?'