I say I might have called witnesses to that fact and I have not done so.

This is because, fortunately, there are several among the members of this court to whom I have been known for many years, and who can themselves, when this court comes to consider its finding, support my present assertion.
"Let me ask you, then, gentlemen, whether it is conceivable that, entertaining such feelings as these towards single combat, I should have been led to depart from them under circumstances that might very well have afforded me an ample shield for refusing satisfaction to a too eager and pressing adversary?
It was precisely because I hold the duel in such contempt that I spoke with such asperity to the deceased when he pronounced Lord Wellington's enactment a degrading one to men of birth.
The very sentiments which I then expressed proclaimed my antipathy to the practice.

How, then, should I have committed the inconsistency of accepting a challenge upon such grounds from Count Samoval?
There is even more irony than Major Swan supposes in a situation which himself has called ironical.
"So much, then, for the motives that are alleged to have actuated me.
I hope you will conclude that I have answered the prosecution upon that matter.
"Coming to the question of fact, I cannot find that there is anything to answer, for nothing has been proved against me.

True, it has been proved that I arrived at Monsanto at half-past eleven or twenty minutes to twelve on the night of the 28th, and it has been further proved that half-an-hour later I was discovered kneeling beside the dead body of Count Samoval.

But to say that this proves that I killed him is more, I think, if I understood him correctly, than Major Swan himself dares to assert.
"Major Swan is quite satisfied that Samoval came to Monsanto for the purpose of fighting a duel that had been prearranged; and I admit that the two swords found, which have been proven the property of Count Samoval, and which, therefore, he must have brought with him, are a prima-facie proof of such a contention.