The doctor turned his back; Saltwood drew in his breath, and grasped his pistol firmly. One of Rotherfield’s seconds was holding the handkerchief high in the air. It fell, and Saltwood jerked up his arm and fired.

He had been so sure that Rotherfield would hit him that it seemed to him that he must have been hit. He recalled having been told that the bullet had a numbing effect, and cast an instinctive glance down his person. But there did not seem to be any blood, and he was certainly still standing on his feet. Then he heard someone ejaculate: ‘Good God! Rotherfield!’ and, looking in bewilderment across the grass, he saw that Mr Mayfield was beside Rotherfield, an arm flung round him, and that the doctor was hurrying towards them. Then Mr Wadworth removed his own pistol from his hand, and said in a stupefied voice: ‘He missed!’

Young Lord Saltwood, realizing that he had hit the finest pistol-shot in town and was himself untouched, was for a moment in danger of collapsing in a swoon. Recovering, he pushed Mr Wadworth away, and strode impetuously up to the group gathered round Rotherfield. He reached it in time to hear that detested voice say: ‘The cub shoots better than I bargained for! Oh, go to the devil, Ned! It’s nothing—a graze!’

‘My lord!’ uttered Saltwood. ‘I wish to offer you my apology for—’

‘Not now, not now!’ interrupted the doctor testily.

Saltwood found himself waved aside. He tried once more to present Rotherfield with an apology, and was then led firmly away by his seconds.

3

‘Most extraordinary thing I ever saw!’ Mr Wadworth told Dorothea, when dragged by her into the small saloon, and bidden disclose the whole to her. ‘Mind, now! Not a word to Charlie! Rotherfield missed!’

Her eyes widened. ‘Fired in the air?’

‘No, no! Couldn’t expect him to do that! Dash it, Dolly, when a man does that he’s owning he was at fault! Don’t mind telling you I felt as sick as a horse. He was looking devilish grim. Queer smile on his face, too. I didn’t like it above half. I’ll swear he took careful aim. Fired a good second before Charlie did. Couldn’t have missed him by more than a hair’s breadth! Charlie got him in the shoulder: don’t think it’s serious. Thing is, shouldn’t be surprised if it’s done Charlie good. Tried to beg Rotherfield’s pardon on the ground, and he’s called once in Mount Street since then. Not admitted: butler said his lordship was not receiving visitors. Given Charlie a fright: he’ll be more the thing now. But don’t you breathe a word, Dolly!’

She assured him she would not mention the matter. An attempt to discover from him who, besides Lord Rotherfield, resided in Mount Street could not have been said to have advanced the object she had in mind. Mr Wadworth was able to recite the names of several persons living in that street; but when asked to identify a gentleman who apparently resembled a demi-god rather than an ordinary mortal, he said without hesitation that he had never beheld anyone remotely corresponding to Miss Saltwood’s description. He began then to show signs of suspicion, so Dorothea was obliged to abandon her enquiries and to cast round in her mind for some other means of discovering the name of her brother’s unknown preserver. None presented itself; nor, when she walked down Mount Street with her maid, was she able to recognize the house in which she had taken refuge. A wistful fancy that the unknown gentleman might perhaps write to tell her that he had kept his word was never very strong, and by the end of the week had vanished entirely. She could only hope that she would one day meet him, and be able to thank him for his kind offices. In the meantime, she found herself to be sadly out of spirits, and behaved with such listless propriety that even Augusta, who had frequently expressed the wish that something should occur to tame her sister’s wildness, asked her if she were feeling well. Lady Saltwood feared that she was going into a decline, and herself succumbed immediately to a severe nervous spasm.

Before any such extreme measures for the restoration to health of the younger Miss Saltwood as bringing her out that very season had been more than fleetingly contemplated by her mama and angrily vetoed by her sister, her disorder was happily arrested. Eight days after Saltwood’s duel, on an afternoon in June, the butler sought out Dorothea, who was reading aloud to her afflicted parent, and contrived to get her out of the drawing-room without arousing any suspicion in Lady Saltwood’s mind that she was wanted by anyone more dangerous than the dressmaker. But once outside the drawing-room Porlock placed a sealed billet in Dorothea’s hand, saying with the air of a conspirator that the gentleman was in the Red Saloon.

The billet was quite short, and it was written in the third person. ‘One who had the pleasure of rendering a trifling service to Miss Dorothea Saltwood begs the honour of a few words with her?

‘Oh!’ gasped Dorothea, all her listlessness vanished. ‘Porlock, pray do not tell Mama or my sister! Pray do not!’

‘Certainly not, miss!’ he responded, with a readiness not wholly due to the very handsome sum already bestowed upon him downstairs. He watched his young mistress speed down the stairs, and thought with pleasure that when Miss Augusta discovered what kind of an out-and-outer was courting her sister she would very likely go off in an apoplexy. The gentleman in the Red Saloon, to his experienced eye, was a bang-up Corinthian, a Nonpareil, a very Tulip of Fashion.

Dorothea, coming impetuously into the saloon, exclaimed on the threshold: ‘Oh, I am so very glad to see you, sir! I have wished so much to thank you, and I have not known how to do so, for I never asked you your name! I don’t know how I came to be such a goose!’

He came towards her, and took her outstretched hand in his left one, bowing over it. She perceived that he was quite as handsome as she had remembered, and that his right arm lay in a sling. She said in quick concern: ‘How comes this about? Have you broke your arm, sir?’

‘No, no!’ he replied, retaining her hand. ‘A slight accident to my shoulder merely! It is of no consequence. I trust that all went well that evening, and that your absence had not been discovered?’

‘No, and I have not mentioned it to anyone!’ she assured him. ‘I am so very much obliged to you! I cannot imagine how you contrived to prevail upon that man not to hit Charlie! Bernard told me that Charlie hit him, and I must say I am sorry, because it was quite my fault, and although he is so odious I did not wish him to be hurt precisely!’

‘To own the truth, he had little expectation of being hurt,’ he said, with a smile. He released her hand, and seemed to hesitate. ‘Lord Rotherfield, Miss Saltwood, does not wish to appear odious in your eyes, believe me!’

‘Is he a friend of yours?’ she asked. ‘Pray forgive me! I am sure he cannot be so very bad if that is so!’

‘I fear he has been quite my worst friend,’ he said ruefully. ‘Forgive me, my child! I am Lord Rotherfield!’

She stood quite still, staring at him, at first pale, and then with a flush in her cheeks and tears sparkling in her eyes. ‘You are Lord Rotherfield?’ she repeated. ‘And I said such things about you, and you let me, and were so very kind, and allowed yourself to be wounded—Oh, I am sure you must be the best person in the world!’

‘I am certainly not that, though I hope I am not the worst. Will you forgive me for having deceived you?’

She put out her hand, and again he took it, and held it. ‘How can you talk so? I am quite ashamed! I wonder you did not turn me out of doors! How good you are! How truly noble!’

‘Ah, how can you talk so?’ he said quickly. ‘Do not! I do not think I had ever, before that evening, wished to please anyone but myself. You came to me—enchanting and abominable child that you are!—and I wanted more than anything in life to please you. I am neither good nor noble—though I am not as black as I was painted to you. I assure you, I had never the least intention of wounding your brother mortally.’

‘Oh no! Had I known it was you I should never have thought that!’

He raised her hand to his lips. The slight fingers seemed to tremble, and then to clasp his. He looked up, but before he could speak Lord Saltwood walked into the room.

Lord Saltwood stopped dead on the threshold, his eyes starting from their sockets. He stared in a dazed way, opened his mouth, shut it again, and swallowed convulsively.

‘How do you do?’ said Rotherfield, with cool civility. ‘You must forgive me for having been unable to receive you when you called at my house the other day.’

‘I came—I wished—I wrote you a letter!’ stammered Saltwood, acutely uncomfortable.

‘Certainly you did, and I have come to acknowledge it. I am much obliged to you, and beg you will think no more of the incident.’

‘C-came to see me?’ gasped Saltwood.

‘Yes, for I understand you to be the head of your family, and I have a request to make of you. I trust that our late unfortunate contretemps may not have made the granting of it wholly repugnant to you.’

‘No, no! I mean—anything in my power, of course! I shall be very happy—! If you would care to step into the book-room, my lord—?’

‘Thank you.’ Rotherfield turned, and smiled down into Dorothea’s anxious eyes. ‘I must take my leave of you now, but I trust Lady Saltwood will permit me to call on her tomorrow.’

‘Yes, indeed, I am persuaded—that is, I do hope she will!’ said Dorothea naively.