Yet you stand there and confess to me the basest, the most dishonest villainy that I have ever known a British officer to commit, and you tell me that you have no explanation to offer for your conduct.

Either I have never known you, O'Moy, or I do not know you now.
Which is it ?" O'Moy raised his arms, only to let them fall heavily to his sides again.
"What explanation can there be ?" he asked.

"How can a man who has been--as I hope I have--a man of honour in the past explain such an act of madness?
It arose out of your order against duelling," he went on.
"Samoval offended me mortally.

He said such things to me of my wife's honour that no man could suffer, and I least of any man.

My temper betrayed me.