Chance felt as he had when he had resolved to die like a gentleman, as Clare had wanted, as Frank and Lester Grawson had expected, as he himself had expected. But that was before the moment the handkerchief had fluttered to the grass, the moment before he had raised his weapon with a gesture that now seemed incomprehensible to him, a gesture that was incredibly swift and sure and that terminated with a crack of a shot and a moon of blood on the shirt of a man twenty-four paces away. It the last instant, moody Edward Chance, the gentleman, or something within him deeper than the gentleman, deeper than his training and the proprieties of his tradition, had decided that he would live. That he did not want to die, and that thusly he must, and would, kill.

He saw the body of Frank Grawson in the white silk shirt, the scarlet sash, face down in the wet grass of Barlow’s meadow. He shook his head.

“You can get your coat and bag,” said Grawson. “I’ll wait.”

Chance looked at him quickly.

“You won’t run,” said Grawson. “If you did, I’d find you again.”

Those blunt eyes like shovels seemed to burn for a moment, With pleasure.

He would like that, thought Chance, he would like for me to run-to run once more-as I did from Charleston, after the killing, when I didn’t want more, when I wanted to get away, when I had to leave, when I cried and ran because there was nothing else to do, nothing else.

“Wait here,” said Chance.

“All right,” said Grawson, starting to light another cigar. “Take your time.”

Chance disappeared.

Grawson’s hands trembled for a moment on the cigar, and then he managed to get the tiny sheet of flame to the tobacco.