Fitzgerald named ten o’clock that night, and placed his card in Jennings’ hand.
“Very good, sir,” replied the latter, having glanced at it; “I presume that both parties are equally anxious to have this affair concluded with all possible despatch; my friend shall attend at the appointed hour.”
With these words they parted.
“I don’t know how it is,” said Fitzgerald, after he had concluded his narrative, “but this thing has put me quite out of spirits—it is a bad affair, a d⸺d bad business; and, mark my words, so sure as you sit there, one or other of them will lose his life by it; they are both of them game—game to the backbone—game every inch, sir; and Chadleigh is in a murderous, black temper, too. Somehow, this is the first business of the sort, I ever had a hand in, that made me mopish; d⸺n me, but it smells all over of death and winding-sheets.”
As the mortal crisis of this strange tragedy approached, my interest in its denouement became more and more intense. At my entreaty, Fitzgerald undertook to let me know, so soon as they were completed, the detailed arrangements for the approaching duel. As he had sundry preparations to make, he was obliged to leave me, and I walked home, in dejected solitude, to my lodgings.
I was no sooner alone in my apartment, than I recollected the paper which had been entrusted to my care by Jennings. He had not only omitted to prohibit its perusal in my case, but had actually told me, in so many words, that I was at liberty to read it. There was, therefore, no impediment to the honourable gratification of my curiosity; and, secure from interruption, I proceeded to examine the document.
It purported to be a statement of certain occurrences, in connection with a clandestine visit made by the de ponent, one “Benjamin Cruise, clerk, resident next door to the Cow and Cleaver, in Smithfield, in the city of Dublin;” at the solicitation of Mrs. Martha Keating, at the house of Sir Arthur Chadleigh, in St. Stephen’s-green. The narrative was to the effect, that the reverend gentleman in question was applied to, on or about a certain day, nearly a year preceding the date of the document in question, to attend at the back entrance of the said mansion; where, according to arrangement, he waited until about one o’clock, when he was admitted, and conveyed with great precaution up a backstair, and into a chamber, where was a young lady, as it seemed, in much agitation; and whom, as he was then and there informed by the old woman, his conductress, he believes to have been Miss Mary Chadleigh; by which name, he was afterwards directed to marry her to a certain young gentleman, whom he now knows to be Captain Jennings, and who, shortly after his, Cruise’s arrival, joined the party in the said chamber, with like caution; that he, Cruise, had then, at the desire of the party, proceeded to unite Miss Chadleigh and Captain Jennings, according to the ritual of the Church of England; and that a noise in another part of the house having alarmed them, the ceremony was interrupted in the introductory part, and before the giving of the ring; and he and Captain Jennings, were together hurried out from the house the same way; and, that he never before, or since then, saw Miss Mary Chadleigh, and knew not of her having been married by any other clergyman. This statement, which was given with great aggravation of detail, was duly dated, and signed in full, by the reverend gentleman, in those days, a not very creditably-notorious personage.
The perusal of this document impressed me still more unfavourably respecting Jennings. There was something sinister and equivocal about the whole thing. The infamous character of the degraded man who signed it; the industrious detail with which it had been prepared; and, above all, the unaccountable precaution which had suggested the adoption of such a measure, filled me with painful misgivings, to the effect that some gross and horrible delusion had been practised upon poor Miss Chadleigh; and I could not forbear deeply regretting, that I had suffered myself, under conditions of secrecy, to be made the depository of so suspicious a document.
I was pursuing this unsatisfactory train of reflections, when a note was placed in my hand; it was couched in the following terms:—
“Dear ⸻,
“At seven o’clock tomorrow morning, on the Fifteen Acres.
I spent a restless night, and was up long before dawn. Having completed my toilet, I walked some way into town, in the grey twilight of coming morning; and when I had, as I calculated, consumed the greater part of the necessary interval, I got into a hackney-coach, and drove directly to the place of rendezvous. Availing myself of a screen of bushes, I stopped the carriage, and got out, unobserved from the scene of action. As soon as I obtained a view of the ground, I observed there a coach, and a little group of three persons, who were standing, listlessly, close beside it; two or three gentlemen on horseback—mere spectators, of course, like myself—were also on the ground. I walked as near as I decently could to the group I have mentioned, and saw that Chadleigh and Fitzgerald were two of the number. The latter looked at his watch, and mounted the coach-box, to command a more extended view; shading his eyes with his hand, he looked along the skirting of wood which bounds the place, in the direction of the city, and at last his eye seemed to settle upon a distant object. I followed the direction of his gaze, and saw the top of a carriage moving in the distance.
“Here,” I thought, “comes Jennings; which of them is to leave the field unhurt, and which—” I shrank from the inquiry, merely mental as it was, with something like
