Le threw off his riding coat, hat and gloves, drew off his boots, thrust his feet into slippers, and dropped into the large, leather armchair before the table, and laid his head upon his folded arms on its top.
Le was not the least of a coward. He knew no fear. Yet he fully realized the awful gravity of the situation in which he had voluntarily placed himself. His Christian conscience began to trouble him.
"Thou shalt not kill!" it whispered to him.
"The dastardly villain ought to be punished," he said to himself. "My uncle cannot call the beast out. He is a justice of the peace; he is a vestryman in the church; he is a husband and a father. He cannot fight the monster! And he has no son to act for him! I am his nearest male relative, and I have no ties to bind me and keep me from doing a man's part in this matter; it seems my duty. I do not want to kill the wretch, though he deserves to die; I do not want to kill him! I think I would far rather he killed me! But I cannot help it! I must call him out, and he must take the risk! I must avenge Odalite!"
"Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord."
Luke, an old servant attached to the plantation, came in and laid fresh logs on the fire, and then went out again.
But Le, absorbed in his argument with his own conscience, never noticed the man's entrance or his exit.
"The die is cast now," he said, in conclusion, "and I must abide the issue. The challenge is sent. The scoundrel is a soldier, and he will accept it! I must meet him! And, if I kill him, I must take the consequences in this world and--in the next!"
Martha, the housekeeper, came in with a large tray on which she had arranged her master's supper. She set it down on a side table, while she removed the books and stationary from the center table and spread a white cloth over it. Then she set out his supper, and said:
"Do, please, young marster, try to eat somefin'. That racket at the church seems to hev upset yer so that yer look downright ill."
Le was feverish and thirsty, and he drank cup after cup of tea, nearly as fast as the housekeeper could pour it out. But he could not eat a morsel.
"'Deed, I'm feared yer gwine to have some sort of a fever, young marster! 'Deed, I am!" said Martha, as she began to clear the table, after finding all her persuasions fruitless to induce the young man to eat.