A Duel

ie and her husband were both out, and she had the house to herself, there was nothing else for her to do, unless she

l boors," she told hers

to her hand. It was addressed to "Mr. G. Lamb". T

put G. Lamb, Esq. G. Lam

y had both been waiting for--the answer to her husband's plea for help. She pressed it bet

r--no cheque, nor anything. If

ntained merely a sheet of common writing-paper,

r Gr

help you'll ever have from me. The shop won't bear it; business i

get your wif

an L

ther was a small shopkeeper in that haunt of the needy clerk! And she had believed him when he had posed before her as a "swell"--an aristocrat; when he had talked about his "coin" and his "gees". He had jockeyed her into supposing that money was a matter of complete indifference to him; that, as she boasted to

the motor was his own. At Edinburgh it vanished; he told her to receive some trifling repairs. But she, having already disc

sum of money. The posts came and went, but they brought no money. So they drifted hither and thither, each time to humbler quarters. Now, within six weeks of marriage, they were stranded at a remote spot in Forfarshire, within a drive of Carnoustie. Isabel had reason to suspect that, at the time of their marriage, her husband had less than two hundred pounds i

s from his shopkeeping mother, who de

him out into the night before the tempest of her scorn and opprobrium. The landlady had departed on an errand of her own. Isabel told herself that now, if ever, an opportunity presented itself to cut herself free from

train which would take her to Dundee, and thence to London; but, supposing she caught it, how about the fare? The fare to London was nearly two pounds; she had not a shi

nawares. Mrs. Macconichie had what Isabel felt sure were coins--gold coins--in one hand, and in the other the lid of a tobacco jar which stood in a corner of the china cupboard. Although seeming to notice n

in her pocket. She took out her own keys; not one of them was any use. She could see the tobacco jar on the other side of the glass door. She did not hesitate long; moments were precious. Taking a metal paper-weight off the mantelshelf she smashed the pane, breaking it right away to enable her to gain free access to the jar. She removed the lid. Th

she thought she heard the sound of approaching footsteps; as if involuntarily she shrank back into the doorway, listening. She had been mistaken; there was not a soun

o yield were only too apt to be wrong ones. For instance, she had not long left Mrs. Macconichie's before she perceived clearly enough that the chances were possibly a hundred to one against her reaching Carnoustie in the darkness on foot. Houses were few and far between; the road was a lonely one; it was quite on the cards that she might not meet a soul from whom to make inquiries. If she had given the thing any thought at all, she would have perceived from the first ho

aintest notion in which direction Carnoustie lay, nor whereabouts she was. She was on a black road; that was all she knew. A rough, uneven road, which apparently straggled over open moorland

s of some sort of pit. With a sense of shock she drew back in time. She listened; she seemed to hear the sound of running waters. Could she be standing on the bank of some stream or river, into which, in another second, she might have descended? Anxious, even a little alarmed, turn

e down lightly enough. The fall was of little consequence, but when she tried to regain her perpendicular she learned

e all night? I shall be frozen to the bone before the morning, to say n

hundred yards of ground. But the labour was thrown away. At that rate she would not have covered a mile before daybreak. Yielding to necessity, still clutching her bag, cro

from what she judged to be the sea. It made itself more and more felt as the time stole on. By degrees

on I shall fre

mula. She kept telling herself again and ag

point the stillness of the night was