As they approached the two figures lifted their hats, a compliment which they returned. Then Mr. Alston went to Captain Justice, and fell into conversation with him, and together they paced off a certain distance on the sand, marking its limits with their walking-sticks. Ernest noticed that it was about the length of a short cricket-pitch.
“Shall we place them?” he heard Captain Justice say.
“Not just yet,” was the reply; “there is barely light enough.”
“Now, gentlemen,” said Mr. Alston presently, “I have prepared in duplicate a paper setting forth as fairly as I can the circumstances under which this unhappy affair has come about. I propose to read it to you, and to ask you all to sign it, as a protection to—to us all. I have brought a pen and a pocket ink-pot with me for that purpose.”
Nobody objected, so he read the paper. It was short, concise, and just, and they all signed it as it stood. Ernest’s hand shook a good deal as he did so.
“Come, that won’t do,” said Mr. Alston, encouragingly, as he pocketed one copy of the document after handing the other to Captain Justice. “Shake yourself together, man!”
But for all his brave words he looked the more nervous of the two.
“I wish to say,” began Ernest, addressing himself to all the other three, “that this quarrel is none of my seeking. I could not in honour give up the note the lady wrote to me. But I feel that this is a dreadful business; and if you,” addressing his cousin, “are ready to apologise for what you said about my mother, I am ready to do the same for attacking you.”
Mr. Hugh Kershaw smiled bitterly, and, turning, said something to his second. Ernest caught the words “white feather.”
“Mr. Hugh Kershaw refuses to offer any apology; he expects one,” was Captain Justice’s ready answer.