'Damn the wound, sir; don't speak to me about it! You never came here for that, I suppose? Take your letter, sir!' A purple flush here coloured his features, as though some pang of agonising pain had shot through him, and his livid lip quivered with passion. 'Take your letter, sir!' and he threw it towards me as he spoke.
I stood amazed and thunderstruck at this sudden outbreak of anger, and for a second or two could not recover myself to speak. 'You mistake me,' said I.
'Mistake you? No, confound me! I don't mistake you; I know you well and thoroughly! But you mistake me, ay, and damnably too, if you suppose that because I 'm crippled here this insolence shall pass unpunished! Who but a coward, sir, would come thus to taunt a man like me? Yes, sir, a coward! I spoke it—I said it! Would you like to hear it over again? Or if you don't like it, the remedy is near you—nearer than you think. There are two pistols in that case, both loaded with ball; take your choice, and your own distance; and here, where we are, let us finish this quarrel! For, mark me!' and here his brow darkened, till the veins, swelled and knotted in his forehead, looked like indigo—'mark me, the account shall be closed one day or other!'
I saw at once that he had lashed his fury up to an ungovernable pitch, and that to speak to him was only to increase his passion; so I stooped down without saying a word, and took up the letter that lay at my feet.
'I am waiting your reply, sir,' said he, with a low voice, subdued by an inward effort into a seeming quietness of tone.
'You cannot imagine,' said I mildly, 'that I could accept of such a challenge as this, nor fight with a man who cannot leave his chair?'
'And who has made me so, sir? Who has made me a paralytic thing for life? But if that be all, give me your arm, and help me through that window; place me against that yew-tree, yonder. I can stand well enough. You won't?—you refuse me this? Oh, coward! coward! You grow pale and red again! Let your white lip mutter, and your nails eat into your hands with passion! Your heart is craven, and you know it!'
Shall I dare to own it? For an instant or two my resolution tottered, and involuntarily my eyes turned to the pistol-case upon the table beside me. He caught the look, and in a tone of triumphant exultation cried out—
'Bravo, bravo! What! you hesitate again? Oh, that this should not be before the world—in some open and public place—that men should not look on and see us here!'
'I leave you, sir,' said I sternly—'thankful, for your sake at least, that this is not before the world.'