"But I must ask you to give me your word as a gentleman that you will hold no further communication with her."
"Sir Benjamin, I shall be frank with you. It is an unfair request. I can not agree to it."
"What do you say?" the Englishman asked in a tone of astonishment, and his query was emphasized with a firm tap of his cane on the pavement.
"I hate to displease you, sir, but if I made such a promise, I would be sure to break it."
"Then, sir, I shall see to it that you have no opportunity to oppose my will."
In spite of his fine restraint, the eyes of the Baronet glowed with anger, as he quickly turned from the young man and hurried away.
"Here is more tyranny," the American thought as he went in the opposite direction. "But I do not believe he can keep us apart."
"I walked on and on," he wrote to a friend. "Never had I felt such a sense of loss and loneliness and dejection. I almost resented the inflexible tyranny of my own spirit which had turned him against me. I accused myself of a kind of selfishness in the matter. Had it been right in me to take a course which endangered the happiness of another, to say nothing of my own? But I couldn't have done otherwise, not if I had known that a mountain were to fall upon me. I am like all of those who follow the star in the west. We do as we must. I had not seen Franklin since my duel, and largely because I had been ashamed to face him. Now I felt the need of his wisdom and so I turned my steps toward his door."
3
"I am like the land of Goshen amid the plagues of Egypt," said Franklin, when the young man was admitted to his office. "My gout is gone and I am in good spirits in spite of your adventure."