Not skill, not luck, but fate itself decided it, and Jack Denningham lay dead. It was a fate he had so often meted out to others, and the day of reckoning must come at last.
It had come now.
But it was no ghost who knelt by the dead man's side, looking down into the grey, horror-stricken face, but Morice Conyers in the flesh—a little paler, a little thinner, but himself for all that.
"He is dead," he said, looking up into Michael's face. "It was just that he should die. The fellow was rogue and villain."
"Rogue and villain I grant," replied Michael slowly, "but I would that the duel had ended before you entered."
Morice shrugged his shoulders.
"Witnesses are always useful," he said. "And there was no shadow of blame to you."
"Even so, I would——"
"Tush, tush! there's no time for discussing the nicety of a thrust now, as de Quernais will tell you."
"De Quernais?"