On Thursday, at the dawn of a gloomy winter morning, the two sleighs crossed over a mile of ice to the Jersey shore. Large flakes of snow were falling as Schmidt drove, the little doctor, Chovet, beside him, De Courval silent on the back seat. Nothing could keep Chovet quiet very long. "I was in the duel of Laurens, the President of the Congress. Oh, it was to be on Christmas Day and near to Seven Street. Mr. Penn—oh, not the fat governor but the senator from Georgia—he slipped in the mud on the way, and Laurens he help him with a hand, and they make up all at once and no further go, and I am disappoint." It was an endless chatter. "And there was the Conway duel, too. Ah, that was good business!"

Schmidt, out of patience, said at last, "If you talk any more, I will throw you out of the sleigh."

"Oh, le diable! and who then will heal these which go to stick one the other? Ha! I ask of you that?"

"The danger will be so much the less," said Schmidt. Chovet was silenced.

On the shore they met De la ForÊt and Carteaux, and presently found in the woods an open space with little snow. The two men stripped to the shirt, and were handed the dueling-swords, Schmidt whispering: "Be cool; no temper here. Wait to attack."

"And now," said the consul, as the seconds fell back, "on guard, Messieurs!"

Instantly the two blades rang sharp notes of meeting steel as they crossed and clashed in the cold morning air. "He is lost!" murmured Schmidt. The slighter man attacked furiously, shifting his ground, at first imprudently sure of his foe. A prick in the chest warned him. Then there was a mad interchange of quick thrusts and more or less competent defense, when De Courval, staggering, let fall his rapier and dropped, while Carteaux, panting, stood still.

Schmidt knelt down. It was a deep chest wound and bled but little outwardly. De Courval, coughing up foamy blood, gasped, "It is over for a time—over." Chovet saw no more to do than to get his man home, and so strangely does associative memory play her tricks that Schmidt, as he rose in dismay, recalled the words of the dying Mercutio. Then, with apparent ease, he lifted RenÉ, and, carrying him to the sleigh, wrapped him in furs, and drove swiftly over the ice to the foot of the garden. "Fasten the horse, Doctor," he said, "and follow me." RenÉ smiled as the German carried him. "The second time of home-coming wounded. How strange! Don't be troubled, sir. I do not mean to die. Tell my mother yourself."

"If you die," murmured Schmidt, "he shall follow you. Do not speak, RenÉ."

He met Margaret on the porch. "What is it?" she cried, as he went by her with his burden. "What is the matter?"

"A duel. He is wounded. Call your mother." Not waiting to say more, he went carefully up-stairs, and with Chovet's help RenÉ was soon in his bed. It was quietly done, Mrs. Swanwick, distressed, but simply obeying directions, asked no questions and Margaret, below-stairs, outwardly calm, her Quaker training serving her well, was bidding Nanny to cease crying and to get what was needed.

Once in bed, RenÉ said only, "My mother—tell her, at once." She had heard at last the quick haste of unwonted stir and met Schmidt at her chamber door.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Certainly, Monsieur. Something has happened to RenÉ. Is he dead?"

"No; but, he is hurt—wounded."

"Then tell me the worst at once. I am not of those to whom you must break ill news gently. Sit down." He obeyed her.

"RenÉ has had a duel. He is badly wounded in the lung. You cannot see him now. The doctor insists on quiet."

"And who will stop me?" she said.

"I, Madame," and he stood between her and the door. "Just now you can only do him harm. I beg of you to wait—oh, patiently—for days, perhaps. If he is worse, you shall know it at once."

For a moment she hesitated. "I will do as you say. Who was the man?"

"Carteaux, Madame."

"Carteaux here! Mon Dieu! Does he live?"

"Yes. He was not hurt."

"And men say there is a God! Christ help me; what is it I have said? How came he here, this man?"

He told her the whole story, she listening with moveless, pale, ascetic face. Then she rose: "I am sorry I did not know of this beforehand. I should have prayed for my son that he might kill him. I thank you, Monsieur. I believe you love my RenÉ."

"As if he were my son, Madame."

Days went by, darkened with despair or brightened with faint hope. Alas! who has not known them? The days grew to weeks. There were no longer guests, only anxious inquirers and a pale, drooping young woman and two mothers variously troubled.

But if here there were watching friendship and love and service and a man to die to-day or to-morrow to live, in the darkened room were spirits twain ever whispering love or hate. Outside of the house where De Courval lay, the Jacobin clubs rejoiced and feasted Carteaux, who burned De Courval's note and held his tongue, while Fauchet complained of the insult to his secretary, and Mr. Randolph neither would nor could do anything.

The February of 1794 passed, and March and April, while Glentworth, Washington's physician, came, and afterward Dr. Rush, to Chovet's disgust. Meanwhile the young man lay in bed wasting away with grim doubts of phthisis in the doctors' minds until in May there was a gain, and, as once before, he was allowed a settle, and soon was in the air on the upper porch, and could see visitors.

Schmidt, more gaunt than ever, kissed the hand of the vicomtesse in his German fashion, as for the first time through all the long vigils they had shared with Mary Swanwick she thanked him for positive assurance of recovery.

"He is safe, you tell me. May the God who has spared my son remember you and bless you through all your days and in all your ways!"

He bent low. "I have my reward, Madame."

Some intuitive recognition of what was in his mind was perhaps naturally in the thought of both. She said, "Will it end here?"

Seeing before him a face which he could not read, he replied, "It is to be desired that it end here, or that some good fortune put the sea between these two."

"And can you, his friend, say that? Not if he is the son I bore. I trust not," and, turning away, she left him; while he looked after her and murmured: "There is more mother in me than in her," and going out to where RenÉ lay, he said gaily: "Out of prison at last, my boy. A grim jail is sickness."

"Ah, to hear the birds who are so free," said RenÉ. "Are they ever ill, I wonder?"

"Mr. Hamilton is below, RenÉ—just come from New York. He has been here twice."

"Then I shall hear of the world. You have starved me of news." There was little good to tell him. The duke, their cousin, had fled from France, and could write to madame only of the Terror and of deaths and ruin.

The Secretary came up fresh with the gaiety of a world in which he was still battling fiercely with the Republican party, glad of the absence of his rival, Jefferson, who saw no good in anything he did or said.

"You are very kind," said De Courval, "to spare me a little of your time, sir." Indeed he felt it. Hamilton sat down, smiling at the eagerness with which RenÉ questioned him.

"There is much to tell, Vicomte. The outrages on our commerce by the English have become unendurable, and how we are to escape war I do not see. An embargo has been proclaimed by the President; it is for thirty days, and will be extended to thirty more. We have many English ships in our ports. No one of them can leave."

"That ought to bring them to their senses," said RenÉ.

"It may," returned Hamilton.

"And what, sir, of the treaty with England?"

Hamilton smiled. "I was to have been sent, but there was too much opposition, and now, as I think, wisely, Chief-Justice Jay is to go to London."

"Ah, Mr. Hamilton, if there were but war with England,—and there is cause enough,—some of us poor exiles might find pleasant occupation."

The Secretary became grave. "I would do much, yield much, to escape war, Vicomte. No man of feeling who has ever seen war desires to see it again. If the memory of nations were as retentive as the memory of a man, there would be an end of wars."

"And yet, sir," said RenÉ, "I hardly see how you—how this people—endure what you so quietly accept."

"Yes, yes. No man more than Washington feels the additions of insult to injury. If to-day you could give him a dozen frigates, our answer to England would not be a request for a treaty which will merely secure peace, and give us that with contempt, and little more. What it personally costs that proud gentleman, our President, to preserve his neutral attitude few men know."

RenÉ was pleased and flattered by the thoughtful gravity of the statesman's talk.

"I see, sir," he said. "There will be no war."

"No; I think not. I sincerely hope not. But now I must go. My compliments to your mother; and I am glad to see you so well."

As he went out, he met Schmidt in the hall. "Ah, why did you not prevent this duel?" he said.

"No man could, sir. It is, I fear, a business to end only when one of them dies. It dates far back of the blow. Some day we will talk of it, but I do not like the outlook."

"Indeed." He went into the street thoughtful. In principle opposed to duels, he was to die in the prime of life a victim to the pistol of Burr.

The pleasant May weather and the open air brought back to De Courval health and the joys of life. The girl in the garden heard once more his bits of French song, and when June came with roses he was able to lie on the lower porch, swinging at ease in a hammock sent by Captain Biddle, and it seemed as if the world were all kindness. As he lay, Schmidt read to him, and he missed only Margaret, ordered out to the country in the care of Aunt Gainor, while, as he grew better, he had the strange joy of senses freshened and keener than in health, as if he were reborn to a new heritage of tastes and odors, the priceless gift of wholesome convalescence.

He asked no questions concerning Carteaux or what men said of the duel; but as Schmidt, musing, saw him at times gentle, pleased, merry, or again serious, he thought how all men have in them a brute ancestor ready with a club. "Just now the devil is asleep." He alone, and the mother, fore-looking, knew; and so the time ran on, and every one wanted him. The women came with flowers and strawberries, and made much of him, the gray mother not ill-pleased.

In June he was up, allowed to walk out or to lie in the boat while Schmidt caught white perch or crabs and talked of the many lands he had seen. Then at last, to RenÉ's joy, he might ride.

"Here," said Schmidt, "is a note from Mistress Gainor. We are asked to dine and stay the night. No, not you. You are not yet fit for dinners and gay women. These doctors are cruel. There will be, she writes, Mr. Jefferson, here for a week; Mr. Langstroth, and a woman or two; and Wolcott of the Treasury, 'if Hamilton will let him come,' she says." For perhaps wisely the new official followed the ex-Secretary's counsels, to the saving of much needless thinking. "A queer party that!" said Schmidt. "What new mischief are she and the ex-Quaker Josiah devising?" He would be there at three, he wrote, the groom having waited a reply.

"Have you any message for Miss Margaret, RenÉ?" he asked next day.

"Tell her that all that is left of me remembers her mother's kindness." And, laughing, he added: "That there is more of me every day."

"And is that all?"

"Yes; that is all. Is there any news?"

"None of moment. Oh, yes, I meant to tell you. The heathen imagine a vain thing—a fine republican mob collected in front of the Harp and Crown yesterday. There was a picture set up over the door in the war—a picture of the Queen of France. A painter was made to paint a ring of blood around the neck and daub the clothes with red. If there is a fool devil, he must grin at that."

"Canaille!" said RenÉ. "Poor queen! We of the religion did not love her; but to insult the dead! Ah, a week in Paris now, and these cowards would fly in fear."

"Yes; it is a feeble sham." And so he left RenÉ to his book and rode away with change of garments in his saddle-bags.