Seeing nothing alarming there, Joe turned to regard Roosevelt, who sat writing at the side table. A fire leaped on the hearth behind him. Joe said, “There’s talk against you, sir. Some of the men who support the Markee. They’re saying you and I bribed witnesses to testify against him.”

“Don’t be alarmed, old fellow. Once the verdict is in, however it’s decided, all this will die down.”

Joe heard a step behind him. He turned to look at the man who had entered through the open doorway.

“Theodore,” Huidekoper said, in a voice Joe didn’t recognize at all.

“What is it, old chap?”

Huidekoper, hands shaking, withdrew a half-curled note, folded in half, from the sleeve of his greatcoat. “De Morès has written you a letter from his cell. The deputy asked me to deliver it.”

“What’s in it?”

“A gentleman doesn’t read another gentleman’s mail. But I can guess.”

Joe Ferris thought, So can I.

Roosevelt accepted the letter from Huidekoper. He unfolded it and read the single sheet. Then he sat heavily, head down, elbows on the table, fingers interlaced, forehead on knuckles.

Huidekoper placed his hat on a hook with the careful doleful precision of a mourner. Joe looked at Bill Sewall and saw nothing but stillness upon the woodsman’s red-bearded cheeks.

Finally Roosevelt spoke. “For a long time Mr. De Morès has incubated hate. During the trial he has been kept in jail with nothing to do but brood. Now the trial approaches its climax and he does not know for certain which way it will go. I suppose it’s strange that I should have more faith in his good luck than he has, but that seems to be the case. I’m sure they’ll find him not guilty, by reason of insufficient evidence. Any reasonable man on the jury must concur there’s doubt as to his guilt. But he doesn’t seem to have much faith in our system of justice. I suppose he has worked himself into some sort of frenzy of suspicion and rage.”

He pushed himself upright in the chair and used his index finger to prod the unfolded letter across the table. “I think you all probably would like to know what it says. Please read it.”

My Dear Roosevelt,

My principle is to take the bull by the horns. Joe Ferris is very active against me and has been instrumental in getting me indicted by furnishing money to witnesses and hunting them up. The papers also publish very stupid accounts of our quarreling—I sent you the paper to N. Y. Is this done by your orders? I thought you my friend. If you are my enemy I want to know it. I am always on hand as you know, and between gentlemen it is easy to settle matters of that sort directly.

Your very truly,

Morès.

I hear the people want to organize the county. I am opposed to it for one year more at least.

Joe took his turn after Huidekoper and Sewall. When he had read the letter he understood why neither of them had said a word.

Bill Sewall was watching Roosevelt with narrowed uncertainty. Huidekoper turned to Joe Ferris in a transparent effort to avert crisis: “Were you really instrumental in getting him indicted by furnishing money to witnesses and hunting them up?”

“I thought it was you,” Joe replied. “Writing letters to Washington and all.”

Huidekoper turned. “Was it you, Theodore?”

“No. I do not write letters behind people’s backs.”

Bill Sewall said, “It may have been Mrs. Reuter.” He stood facing Roosevelt. With vexation tempered by fondness, Sewall spoke softly, bringing them all back to what they were trying to evade. “The Marquis was trained at St. Cyr. They say there isn’t his equal as a swordsman in any country.”

“I’m sure that’s a vast exaggeration. I’ve seen him fence with Wibaux—I thought him only adequate. He might have killed Wibaux but that’s because Wibaux is nearly as clumsy with a sword as I am. In any event I certainly wouldn’t think of engaging De Morès in swordplay. Why play into his hands? As the challenged party I have the choice of weapons. My choice would be the rifle.”

“He’s a dead shot,” said Huidekoper, “and he loads his ammunition with exploding bullets.”

Roosevelt said calmly, “By George, if he needs to use exploding bullets then he jolly well can’t be all that much of a dead shot, can he. Recall, if you will, how much ammunition he seems to have poured wastefully into the carcasses of those poor dead horses in the road.”

Joe said, “My Remington and I are at your disposal, sir.”

“Thank you, old fellow. It won’t be necessary.” Roosevelt sighed. “Really, you know, my friends, I do not approve of duelling. It’s barbarism.”

Huidekoper said, “No man in his right mind would dignify this rot with a reply of any kind. Look at the postscript. Clearly he’s on the verge of lunacy. First he challenges you to an affair of honor and then he gives you his advice about county government. Ample evidence, it seems to me, that he’s deranged. No one will think any less of you for ignoring the fool.”

Roosevelt examined the letter again. “I’m afraid the words and their meaning are clear. The postscript may be open to interpretation but the challenge is not. In the circumstances he gives me no choice. I shall not back down and I shall not be seen to back down from Mr. De Morès.” He removed his glasses and bent his large blue eyes close to the paper as he wrote.

Huidekoper said in alarm, “What are you doing?”

“Writing back an acceptance of the challenge.”

Joe said, “And you ought to demand an apology.”

“An apology is worthless if you have to ask for it.”

“Your idealism is as demented as it is magnificent,” said Huidekoper. “It’s appalling.”

Roosevelt said, “Sensible men since ancient times have realized that courage is not the only virtue but that it is the virtue without which the others are meaningless. Conversely, of course, courage alone may be insufficient. You may find it in men of evil character. Without a sense of duty and responsibility—without cool judgment and moral strength—a man counts for very little. Reputation be damned. For my own sake I cannot play the coward.”

Huidekoper muttered, “Pardon my scoffing—but one would think you were the first man ever to have discovered the Ten Commandments.”

“Your cautionary objections are noted,” Roosevelt told him, and handed his own two-page note to Sewall. Joe went around behind him to read it unabashedly over his shoulder—Roosevelt would stop him if he didn’t want Joe reading it, and Roosevelt said nothing so Joe squinted and tried to read in the poor light but by then Sewall had put the first page behind the second and Joe only was able to read the last part of the letter. It was enough:

Most emphatically I am not your enemy; if I were you would know it, for I would be an open one, and would not have asked you to my house nor gone to yours. As your final words however seem to Imply a threat it is due to myself to say that the statement is not made through any fear of possible consequences to me; I too, as you know, am always on hand, and ever ready to hold myself accountable in any way for anything I have said or done.

Yours very truly,

Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt gave Joe a dry look—If you’re quite finished now?—and said, “Bill, if you’ll be so kind as to act as my second, please inform Mr. De Morès’s second that I have chosen Winchester rifles and that I choose to have the distance arranged at twelve paces. My eyesight is weak as you know and I don’t consider myself an especially good shot—therefore I must be near enough so that I can hit. We will shoot and advance until one or the other is satisfied.”

“Maybe they’ll convict him. Then you won’t have to fight.”

“Yes. Well we shall see whether they convict him,” Roosevelt said with a dryness that was not typical of him. “Perhaps they will, after all.”

Joe replied, “You may have been a great politician but you’re a bad liar.”