“Mr. Tyrrel,” said Captain Jekyl, “you must allow me to speak with candour. There is too great a stake betwixt your brother and you to permit you to be friends; but I do not see it is necessary that you should therefore be mortal enemies.”
“I am not my brother's enemy, Captain Jekyl,” said Tyrrel—“I have never been so—His friend I cannot be, and he knows but too well the insurmountable barrier which his own conduct has placed between us.”
“I am aware,” said Captain Jekyl, slowly and expressively, “generally, at least, of the particulars of your unfortunate disagreement.”
“If so,” said Tyrrel, colouring, “you must be also aware with what extreme pain I feel myself compelled to enter on such a subject with a total stranger—a stranger, too, the friend and confidant of one who——But I will not hurt your feelings, Captain Jekyl, but rather endeavour to suppress my own. In one word, I beg to be favoured with the import of your communication, as I am obliged to go down to the Spa this morning, in order to put to rights some matters there which concern me nearly.”
“If you mean the cause of your absence from an appointment with Sir Bingo Binks,” said Captain Jekyl, “the matter has been already completely explained. I pulled down the offensive placard with my own hand, and rendered myself responsible for your honour to any one who should presume to hold it in future doubt.”
“Sir,” said Tyrrel, very much surprised, “I am obliged to you for your intention, the more so as I am ignorant how I have merited such interference. It is not, however, quite satisfactory to me, because I am accustomed to be the guardian of my own honour.”
“An easy task, I presume, in all cases, Mr. Tyrrel,” answered Jekyl, “but peculiarly so in the present, when you will find no one so hardy as to assail it.—My interference, indeed, would have been unjustifiably officious, had I not been at the moment undertaking a commission implying confidential intercourse with you. For the sake of my own character, it became necessary to establish yours. I know the truth of the whole affair from my friend, the Earl of Etherington, who ought to thank Heaven so long as he lives, that saved him on that occasion from the commission of a very great crime.”
“Your friend, sir, has had, in the course of his life, much to thank Heaven for, but more for which to ask God's forgiveness.”
“I am no divine, sir,” replied Captain Jekyl, with spirit; “but I have been told that the same may be said of most men alive.”
“I, at least, cannot dispute it,” said Tyrrel; “but, to proceed.—Have you found yourself at liberty, Captain Jekyl, to deliver to the public the whole particulars of a rencontre so singular as that which took place between your friend and me?”