"Dammy, indeed," said Mr. Wenham with the most agreeable smile; "still, look at the matter as a man of the world--as an honest man--and see if you have not been in the wrong. You come home from a journey, and find--what?--my Lord Steyne supping at your house in Curzon Street with Mrs. Crawley. Is the circumstance strange or novel? Has he not been a hundred times before in the same position? Upon my honour and word as a gentleman"--Mr. Wenham here put his hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air--"I declare I think that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly unfounded, and that they injure an honourable gentleman who has proved his good-will towards you by a thousand benefactions--and a most spotless and innocent lady."

"You don't mean to say that--that Crawley's mistaken?" said Mr. Macmurdo.

"I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs. Wenham," Mr. Wenham said with great energy. "I believe that, misled by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not only an infirm and old man of high station, his constant friend and benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honour, his son's future reputation, and his own prospects in life."

"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham continued with great solemnity; "I was sent for this morning by my Lord Steyne, and found him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley, any man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with a man of your strength. I say to your face; it was a cruel advantage you took of that strength, Colonel Crawley. It was not only the body of my noble and excellent friend which was wounded--his heart, sir, was bleeding. A man whom he had loaded with benefits and regarded with affection had subjected him to the foulest indignity. What was this very appointment, which appears in the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you? When I saw his Lordship this morning I found him in a state pitiable indeed to see, and as anxious as you are to revenge the outrage committed upon him, by blood. You know he has given his proofs, I presume, Colonel Crawley?"

"He has plenty of pluck," said the Colonel. "Nobody ever said he hadn't."

"His first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and to carry it to Colonel Crawley. One or other of us," he said, "must not survive the outrage of last night."

Crawley nodded. "You're coming to the point, Wenham," he said.

"I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne. 'Good God! sir,' I said, 'how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not accepted Mrs. Crawley's invitation to sup with her!'"

"She asked you to sup with her?" Captain Macmurdo said.

"After the opera. Here's the note of invitation--stop--no, this is another paper--I thought I had it, but it's of no consequence, and I pledge you my word to the fact. If we had come--and it was only one of Mrs. Wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers under them a good deal, especially in the spring--if we had come, and you had returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no suspicion--and so it is positively because my poor wife has a headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and plunge two of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom into disgrace and sorrow."