The document was unfinished, having been left incomplete at the very place where the reader would most wish to find it continued.

No reason could be discovered for this, and no second manuscript bearing on the all-important subject had been found, after the strictest search among the papers left by the deceased.
The document itself then followed.
It purported to be an agreement privately drawn up between Mr.Monkton's second, Monsieur Foulon, and the Count St.Lo's second, Monsieur Dalville, and contained a statement of all the arrangements for conducting the duel.

The paper was dated "Naples, February 22d," and was divided into some seven or eight clauses.

The first clause described the origin and nature of the quarrel--a very disgraceful affair on both sides, worth neither remembering nor repeating.

The second clause stated that, the challenged man having chosen the pistol as his weapon, and the challenger (an excellent swordsman), having, on his side, thereupon insisted that the duel should be fought in such a manner as to make the first fire decisive in its results, the seconds, seeing that fatal consequences must inevitably follow the hostile meeting, determined, first of all, that the duel should be kept a profound secret from everybody, and that the place where it was to be fought should not be made known beforehand, even to the principals themselves.