Remember, I was not fighting for any whimsy about honour, nor even for the love of Elspeth.  I had openly provoked Grey because the hostility of the young gentry had become an intolerable nuisance in my daily life.  So, with such pedestrian reasons in my mind, I could have none of the heady enthusiasm of passion.  I wanted him and his kind cleared out of my way, like a noisome insect, but I had no flaming hatred of him to give me heart.

The consequence was that I became a prey to dismal fear.  That bravery which knows no ebb was never mine.  Indeed, I am by nature timorous, for my fancy is quick, and I see with horrid clearness the incidents of a peril.  Only a shamefaced conscience holds me true, so that, though I have often done temerarious deeds, it has always been because I feared shame more than the risk, and my knees have ever been knocking together and my lips dry with fright.  I tried to think soberly over the future, but could get no conclusion save that I would not do murder.  My conscience was pretty bad about the whole business.  I was engaged in the kind of silly conflict which I had been bred to abhor; I had none of the common gentleman’s notions about honour; and I knew that if by any miracle I slew Grey I should be guilty in my own eyes of murder.  I would not risk the guilt.  If God had determined that I should perish before my time, then perish I must.

This despair brought me a miserable kind of comfort.  When I reached home I went straight to Faulkner.

“I have quarrelled to-day with a gentleman, John, and have promised him satisfaction.  You must act for me in the affair.  Some one will come to see you this evening, and the meeting had better be at dawn to-morrow.”

He opened his eyes very wide.  “Who is it, then?” he asked.

“Mr. Charles Grey of Grey’s Hundred,” I replied.

This made him whistle low, “He’s a fine swordsman,” he said.  “I never heard there was any better in the dominion.  You’ll be to fight with swords?”

I thought hard for a minute.  I was the challenged, and so had the choice of weapons.  “No,” said I, “you are to appoint pistols, for it is my right.”

At this Faulkner slowly grinned.  “It’s a new weapon for these affairs.  What if they’ll not accept?  But it’s no business of mine, and I’ll remember your wishes.”  And the strange fellow turned again to his accounts.

I spent the evening looking over my papers and making various appointments in case I did not survive the morrow.  Happily the work I had undertaken for Lawrence was all but finished, and of my ordinary business Faulkner knew as much as myself.  I wrote a letter to Uncle Andrew, telling him frankly the situation, that he might know how little choice I had.  It was a cold-blooded job making these dispositions, and I hope never to have the like to do again.  Presently I heard voices outside, and Faulkner came to the door with Mr. George Mason, the younger, of Thornby, who passed for the chief buck in Virginia.  He gave me a cold bow.