“Hadn’t you better go and nurse the scoundrel, and read to him a bit? Bah! Come along, man. He has his second, and they can fetch help from the fishermen’s cottages if they want it.”
Sir Harry followed him up the cliff steps and along the Down path without a word.
“So, I shall not want a post-chaise,” said Rockley, with a laugh. “No rushing up to town and hiding for a while in chambers in St. James’s, or running over to Boulogne. Good job, too. Save the money. I’m fearfully short. Why, man, you look white.”
“Do I? It’s cold. I’m glad that the affair has terminated so well.”
“Terminated?” cried the Major, grasping him by the arm, “It has only begun. I tell you there are other ways than bullets to touch a man’s heart, and I’ll pierce his, curse him! so that he shall rue the day he ever crossed my path.”
Sir Harry looked at him uneasily.
“Payne,” he continued, “I’m a firm friend to those who help me—and lend me money,” he added, with a laugh—“but I never forgive an insult, or a woman’s slight.”
Down on the beach, Colonel Mellersh was kneeling with the great drops of perspiration standing on his face, holding Richard Linnell’s hand, while the surgeon was looking on anxiously at the returning signs of knowledge of his position on his patient’s part.
The other principal and second had been gone some minutes when footsteps were heard, and James Bell and Fisherman Dick came quickly down the cliff.
“Is he much hurt, sir?” said the former, with real signs of trouble in his face.