"Fight—a—duel!" he uttered, in blank astonishment, leaving a pause between each word. "Surely they'd not be such fools."
"They will, earl."
"Not with my help, then. I'd put the police on the track first."
"It would do no good," returned Leek, shaking his head: "they'd evade the police. Look here, Shrewsbury, when fellows are determined to go in for a thing of this sort, be assured they will go in for it, by hook or by crook. Loftus, it seems, has been bent on it for some time, and he has so managed to stir up Gall, that I don't know now which is the more eager for it of the two."
"And suppose either of them should get killed?—or both?" debated the earl. "I say, Leek, this is an awful thing."
Leek nodded gravely. A little fishing-boat lay alongside the pier in the harbour, stranded there in attempting to come in when the late tide was nearly out; she was just getting afloat now, and two men on board her were making some bustle, talking in loud tones. Leek and Talbot stood looking down upon her as if attracted to interest; in reality they were absorbed in their own thoughts.
"I told them it was an awful business," spoke Leek, in answer to the last remark, "but I might just as well have said it to the wind. Well, let us talk it over, old fellow. We must be men for once, and do the best we can."
Talbot held out no longer. And the two paced about, settling preliminaries, planning and devising. A matter of this nature seemed to carry them beyond their years; to take them out of young men into old ones. Returning to Leek's room at the Hotel des Bains, they got out the pistols, which Loftus had resigned to Leek, and examined them preparatory to their being loaded later. By some untoward fate, while the weapons were in their hands, Brown major, making a call on Leek, burst into the room. Talbot hurried the pistols out of sight, but the gentlemen were both so confused that Brown could not help suspecting something extraordinary was in the wind, and said so. In the irresistible attraction that gossip presents, they imparted the secret to him. Mr. Brown sat down on Leek's portmanteau, while he digested the news.
"I'd not have believed it of Gall," he said at length.
"Nor I at one time," returned Talbot. "Loftus has taunted him into it."