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THE ASSAULT-AT-ARMS.
The meeting was appointed by my Lord Rotherby for seven o'clock next morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

It is true that Lincoln's Inn Fields at an early hour of the day was accounted a convenient spot for the transaction of such business as this; yet, considering that it was in the immediate neighborhood of Stretton House, overlooked, indeed, by the windows of that mansion, it is not easy to rid the mind of a suspicion that Rotherby appointed that place of purpose set, and with intent to mark his contempt and defiance of his father, with whom he supposed Mr.
Caryll to be in some league.
Accompanied by the Duke of Wharton and Major Gascoigne, Mr.Caryll entered the enclosure promptly as seven was striking from St.Clement Danes.

They had come in a coach, which they had left in waiting at the corner of Portugal Row.
As they penetrated beyond the belt of trees they found that they were the first in the field, and his grace proceeded with the major to inspect the ground, so that time might be saved against the coming of the other party.
Mr.Caryll stood apart, breathing the freshness of the sunlit morning, but supremely indifferent to its glory.

He was gloomy and preoccupied.
He had slept ill that night after his interview with Sir Richard, tormented by the odious choice that lay before him of either breaking with the adoptive father to whom he owed obedience and affection, or betraying his natural father whom he had every reason to hate, yet who remained his father.