The Scouting Detail
This premeditated insult, which Brennan had evidently despatched broadcast in hope that through some unknown channel it might reach me, changed my entire relationship with the man. Heretofore, while feeling deep resentment toward him, I yet was strongly inclined to avoid any personal meeting. Fear had nothing whatever to do with this shrinking on my part, nor would I have deliberately avoided him, yet as the husband of Edith Brennan I realized that if he suffered seriously at my hands it must for ever separate us. I felt more and more deeply the shame of loving the wife of another, and certainly I could never bring myself to advertise her as in any way the cause of so disgraceful a brawl. Far better was it for me to suffer in silence any taunts and degradations he chose to place upon me. Surely I loved her well enough to remain patient for her sake.

But now all this had been changed by a word. His deliberate attempt to soil my reputation among officers of my own corps left me no choice but that of a resort to arms. I have never felt that Brennan was at heart a bad man; he was hard, stern, revengeful, yet I have no doubt under different circumstances I might even have valued him highly as a comrade or a friend. There is no demon like jealousy; and his early distrust of me, fostered by that mad disease, had apparently warped his entire nature. Yet not even for love could I consent to leave my honor undefended, and after those hateful words there could be no rest for me until our differences were settled by the stern arbitrament of the naked blade. All prudence to the winds, no opportunity of meeting him should now be cast aside.