I occupied the evening in the necessary preparations of my affairs for the contingency of a fatal issue.  Near midnight I went to my residence, and in the seclusion of my sleeping chamber passed an hour in a tumultuous variety of thought.  I had briefly written, for Evelyn’s perusal, a history of my life as connected with her, and a true version of the circumstances leading to the duel.  ’If I fall’—­I sadly thought—­’will she appreciate my self-offering?  Shall I leave her a legacy of sorrow, if my death under these circumstances would grieve her?  No!  I will die as I have thus far lived—­making no expression of the love which sways my soul.’  I tore my letter into fragments and burned them.  Passing silently into her chamber,—­the first time I had entered it for long months,—­I kneeled at her bedside and sobbed.  By the dim light I could trace the marks of grief—­cold, heart-consuming grief—­on her beautiful features—­marks which in the day-time resolute pride effaced; as the furrows in the rocks of the sea-shore are seen at ebb-tide, but are concealed when the waters bound at their flood.  Slowly and cautiously I approached my lips to hers, and lightly touched them.  She stirred, and I sank to the floor.  Her sleep being but lightly disturbed, I glided like a ghost from the chamber, and with a heart-rending groan threw myself on my bed and forced forgetfulness and slumber.

All parties were on the field at the appointed hour, and the preliminaries were quickly arranged.  There was in Sefton’s countenance the expression of deliberate criminality, encouraged by the expectation of an easy triumph.  Immediately upon the word, he fired.  The ball grazed my breast, tore from my shirt-front a pin, and, glancing off, fell into a creek which partly encircled the ground.  Had he been a moment less precipitate in his determination to ensure my death, the slight movement I would have made in raising my arm to fire would probably have changed my position sufficiently to have received the bullet.  My shot followed immediately upon his.  He was seen to stagger, but declared himself unhurt, and demanded a second shot.  The pistols were prepared and delivered.  I noticed that Sefton received his with the left hand.  We were again placed, and just as the word were being given, he fell to the ground.  On examination it appeared that at the first fire my ball had struck immediately in front of the arm and shattered the clavicle, thence passing—­in one of the freaks peculiar to bullets—­immediately beneath the flesh, half round the body, lodging under the opposite shoulder.  He had fainted from the wound.

Of course the duel was ended.  Sefton was confined to his house for weeks, and on recovering removed to Texas, where in a few months afterward he died from mania a potu.

On returning home, I found that the tidings of my difficulty with Sefton, and its anticipated consequences, had been communicated to my wife.  She met me in the hall, her eyes flashing, but her manner evincing more tenderness than I had ever before witnessed in it.  ’Is this true, Mr. Bell,’ she asked, ’that public rumor has informed me?  Have you had a quarrel with Mr. Sefton?  Have you fought with him?’