“Once, Dick.”
The young man’s countenance contracted, and he looked at his companion almost in horror.
“Yes,” said the Colonel; “it is horrible, Dick, and the remembrance that the man was an utter scoundrel does not make the fact much less horrible after all these years.”
They walked on for some distance in silence, before Richard Linnell broke in upon his companion’s reverie.
“Was the duel about—a lady?”
The Colonel uttered a harsh laugh.
“It’s an arrangement of nature, my dear Ulysses,” he said. “If you see a couple of stags smashing their antlers, a couple of bulls goring each other, or two rams battering one another’s heads, a brace of pheasants or barn-door cocks pecking and spurring each other to death, what’s it about? A lady. The same with mankind, Dick; a duel is almost invariably more or less directly about a lady.”
Richard Linnell went on thoughtfully for a time, and then turned with a sad smile to the Colonel.
“So even you had to do battle once in such a cause?”
“Not exactly, Dick; it was upon another’s behalf. An utter scoundrel, just such a fellow as Rockley, did my best friend a mortal wrong. One day, Dick, it was a happy, peaceful home that I used to visit, where as sweet-natured, true, and gentle a man as ever breathed lived in happy trust and faith in his sweet young wife; the next there was a stain—an indelible stain—upon that hearth-stone, and my poor friend lay stricken down by the shock, and nearly died of the brain fever that ensued.”