“‘Draw your pistol and you are dead!’
“He looked at me with perfect coolness, mingled with a sort of curiosity. I saw that he was a man of unfaltering courage, and that the instincts of a gentleman had not entirely left him, soiled as he was with every crime. His eye was calm and unshrinking. He did not move an inch when I placed my pistol muzzle upon his breast. At the words which I uttered he withdrew his hand from his cloak—he had returned the weapon to its place—and with a penetrating glance, said:—
“‘What do you wish, sir; as you declare you await me?’
“‘Ask madam,’ I said, ‘or rather exert your own ingenuity.’
“‘My ingenuity?’
“‘In guessing.’
“‘Why not tell me?’
“‘So be it. The matter is perfectly simple, sir. I wish to kill you, or give you an opportunity to kill me—is that plain?’
“‘Quite so,’ replied Mortimer, without moving a muscle.
“‘I can understand, without further words, that all explanations and discussions are wholly useless.’