“Robert Eccles.”

Edward’s face grew signally white over the contents of this unprecedented challenge.  The letter had been brought in to him at the breakfast table.  “Read it, read it,” said Mrs. Lovell, seeing him put it by; and he had read it with her eyes on him.

The man seemed to him a man of claws, who clutched like a demon.  Would nothing quiet him?  Edward thought of bribes for the sake of peace; but a second glance at the letter assured his sagacious mind that bribes were powerless in this man’s case; neither bribes nor sticks were of service.  Departure from Fairly would avail as little:  the tenacious devil would follow him to London; and what was worse, as a hound from Dahlia’s family he was now on the right scent, and appeared to know that he was.  How was a scandal to be avoided?  By leaving Fairly instantly for any place on earth, he could not avoid leaving the man behind; and if the man saw Mrs. Lovell again, her instincts as a woman of her class were not to be trusted.  As likely as not she would side with the ruffian; that is, she would think he had been wronged—­perhaps think that he ought to have been met.  There is the democratic virus secret in every woman; it was predominant in Mrs. Lovell, according to Edward’s observation of the lady.  The rights of individual manhood were, as he angrily perceived, likely to be recognized by her spirit, if only they were stoutly asserted; and that in defiance of station, of reason, of all the ideas inculcated by education and society.

“I believe she’ll expect me to fight him,” he exclaimed.  At least, he knew she would despise him if he avoided the brutal challenge without some show of dignity.

On rising from the table, he drew Algernon aside.  It was an insufferable thought that he was compelled to take his brainless cousin into his confidence, even to the extent of soliciting his counsel, but there was no help for it.  In vain Edward asked himself why he had been such an idiot as to stain his hands with the affair at all.  He attributed it to his regard for Algernon.  Having commonly the sway of his passions, he was in the habit of forgetting that he ever lost control of them; and the fierce black mood, engendered by Robert’s audacious persecution, had passed from his memory, though it was now recalled in full force.

“See what a mess you drag a man into,” he said.

Algernon read a line of the letter.  “Oh, confound this infernal fellow!” he shouted, in sickly wonderment; and snapped sharp, “drag you into the mess?  Upon my honour, your coolness, Ned, is the biggest part about you, if it isn’t the best.”

Edward’s grip fixed on him, for they were only just out of earshot of Mrs. Lovell.  They went upstairs, and Algernon read the letter through.

“‘Midnight assassin,’” he repeated; “by Jove! how beastly that sounds.  It’s a lie that you attacked him in the dark, Ned—­eh?”