Garnache had but a few minutes in which to unfold his story, and he needed, in addition, a second or two in which to ponder the situation as he now found it.

His first reflection was that Florimond, since he was now married, might perhaps, instead of proving Valerie’s saviour from Marius, join forces with his brother in coercing her into this alliance with him. But from what Valerie herself had told him he was inclined to think more favourably of Florimond and to suppress such doubts as these. Still he could incur no risks; his business was to serve Valerie and Valerie only; to procure at all costs her permanent liberation from the power of the Condillacs. To make sure of this he must play upon Florimond’s anger, letting him know that Marius had journeyed to La Rochette for the purpose of murdering his half-brother. That he but sought to murder him to the end that he might be removed from his path to Valerie, was a circumstance that need not too prominently be presented. Still, presented it must be, for Florimond would require to know by what motive his brother was impelled ere he could credit him capable of such villainy.

Succinctly, but tellingly, Garnache brought out the story of the plot that had been laid for Florimond’s assassination, and it joyed him to see the anger rising in the Marquis’s face and flashing from his eyes.

“What reason have they for so damnable a deed?” he cried, between incredulity and indignation.

“Their overweening ambition. Marius covets Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye’s estates.”

“And to gain his ends he would not stop at murdering me? Is it, indeed, the truth you tell me?”

“I pledge my honour for the truth of it,” answered Garnache, watching him closely. Florimond looked at him a moment. The steady glance of those blue eyes and the steady tone of that crisp voice scattered his last doubt.

“The villains!” cried the Marquis. “The fools!” he added. “For me, Marius had been welcome to Valerie. He might have found in me an ally to aid him in the urging of his suit. But now—” He raised his clenched hand and shook it in the air, as if in promise of the battle he would deliver.

“Good,” said Garnache, reassured. “I hear their steps upon the stairs. They must not find me with you.”

A moment later the door opened, and Marius, very bravely arrayed, entered the room, followed closely by Fortunio. Neither showed much ill effects of last night’s happenings, save for a long dark-brown scar that ran athwart the captain’s cheek, where Garnache’s sword had ploughed it.

They found Florimond seated quietly at table, and as they entered he rose and came forward with a friendly smile to greet his brother. His sense of humour was being excited; he was something of an actor, and the role he had adopted in the comedy to be played gave him a certain grim satisfaction. He would test for himself the truth of what Monsieur de Garnache had told him concerning his brother’s intentions. Marius received his advances very coolly. He took his brother’s hand, submitted to his brother’s kiss; but neither kiss nor hand-pressure did he return. Florimond affected not to notice this.

“You are well, my dear Marius, I hope,” said he, and thrusting him out at arms’ length, he held him by the shoulders and regarded him critically. “Ma foi, but you are changed into a comely well-grown man. And your mother—she is well, too, I trust.”

“I thank you, Florimond, she is well,” said Marius stiffly.

The Marquis took his hands from his brother’s shoulders; his florid, good-natured face smiling ever, as if this were the happiest moment of his life.

“It is good to see France again, my dear Marius,” he told his brother. “I was a fool to have remained away so long. I am pining to be at Condillac once more.”

Marius eyeing him, looked in vain for signs of the fever. He had expected to find a debilitated, emaciated man; instead, he saw a very lusty, healthy, hearty fellow, full of good humour, and seemingly full of strength. He began to like his purpose less, despite such encouragement as he gathered from the support of Fortunio. Still, it must be gone through with.

“You wrote us that you had the fever,” he said, half inquiringly.

“Pooh! That is naught.” And Florimond snapped a strong finger against a stronger thumb. “But whom have you with you?” he asked, and his eyes took the measure of Fortunio, standing a pace or two behind his master.

Marius presented his bravo.

“This is Captain Fortunio, the commander of our garrison of Condillac.”

The Marquis nodded good-humouredly towards the captain.

“Captain Fortunio? He is well named for a soldier of fortune. My brother, no doubt, will have family matters to tell me of. If you will step below, Monsieur le Capitaine, and drink a health or so while you wait, I shall be honoured.”

The captain, nonplussed, looked at Marius, and Florimond surprised the look. But Marius’s manner became still chillier.

“Fortunio here,” said he, and he half turned and let his hand fall on the captain’s shoulder, “is my very good friend. I have no secrets from him.”

The instant lift of Florimond’s eyebrows was full of insolent, supercilious disdain. Yet Marius did not fasten his quarrel upon that. He had come to La Rochette resolved that any pretext would serve his turn. But the sight of his brother so inflamed his jealousy that he had now determined that the quarrel should be picked on the actual ground in which it had its roots.

“Oh, as you will,” said the Marquis coolly. “Perhaps your friend will be seated, and you, too, my dear Marius.” And he played the host to them with a brisk charm. Setting chairs, he forced them to sit, and pressed wine upon them.

Marius cast his hat and cloak on the chair where Garnache’s had been left. The Parisian’s hat and cloak, he naturally assumed to belong to his brother. The smashed flagon and the mess of wine upon the floor he scarce observed, setting it down to some clumsiness, either his brother’s or a servant’s. They both drank, Marius in silence, the captain with a toast.

“Your good return, Monsieur le Marquis,” said he, and Florimond thanked him by an inclination of the head. Then, turning to Marius:

“And so,” he said, “you have a garrison at Condillac. What the devil has been taking place there? I have had some odd news of you. It would almost seem as if you were setting up as rebels in our quiet little corner of Dauphiny.”

Marius shrugged his shoulders; his face suggested that he was ill-humoured.

“Madame the Queen-Regent has seen fit to interfere in our concerns. We Condillacs do not lightly brook interference.”

Florimond showed his teeth in a pleasant smile.

“That is true, that is very true, Pardieu! But what warranted this action of Her Majesty’s?”

Marius felt that the time for deeds was come. This fatuous conversation was but a futile waste of time. He set down his glass, and sitting back in his chair he fixed his sullen black eyes full upon his half-brother’s smiling brown ones.

“I think we have exchanged compliments enough,” said he, and Fortunio wagged his head approvingly. There were too many men in the courtyard for his liking, and the more time they waited, the more likely were they to suffer interruption. Their aim must be to get the thing done quickly, and then quickly to depart before an alarm could be raised. “Our trouble at Condillac concerns Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.”

Florimond started forward, with a ready assumption of lover-like solicitude.

“No harm has come to her?” he cried. “Tell me that no harm has come to her.”

“Reassure yourself,” answered Marius, with a sneer, a greyness that was of jealous rage overspreading his face. “No harm has come to her whatever. The trouble was that I sought to wed her, and she, because she is betrothed to you, would have none of me. So we brought her to Condillac, hoping always to persuade her. You will remember that she was under my mother’s tutelage. The girl, however, could not be constrained. She suborned one of our men to bear a letter to Paris for her, and in answer to it the Queen sent a hot-headed, rash blunderer down to Dauphiny to procure her liberation. He lies now at the bottom of the moat of Condillac.”

Florimond’s face had assumed a look of horror and indignation.

“Do you dare tell me this?” he cried.

“Dare?” answered Marius, with an ugly laugh. “Men enough have died over this affair already. That fellow Garnache left some bodies on our hands last night before he set out for another world himself. You little dream how far my daring goes in this matter. I’ll add as many more as need be to the death roll that we have already, before you set foot in Condillac.”

“Ah!” said Florimond, as one upon whose mind a light breaks suddenly. “So, that is the business on which you come to me. I doubted your brotherliness, I must confess, my dear Marius. But tell me, brother mine, what of our father’s wishes in this matter? Have you no respect for those?”

“What respect had you?” flashed back Marius, his voice now raised in anger. “Was it like a lover to remain away for three years—to let all that time go by without ever a word from you to your betrothed? What have you done to make good your claim to her?”

“Nothing, I confess; yet—”

“Well, you shall do something now,” exclaimed Marius, rising. “I am here to afford you the opportunity. If you would still win Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, you shall win her from me—at point of sword. Fortunio, see to the door.”

“Wait, Marius!” cried Florimond, and he looked genuinely aghast. “Do not forget that we are brothers, men of the same blood; that my father was your father.”

“I choose to remember rather that we are rivals,” answered Marius, and he drew his rapier. Fortunio turned the key in the lock. Florimond gave his brother a long searching look, then with a sigh he picked up his sword where it lay ready to his hand and thoughtfully unsheathed it. Holding the hilt in one hand and the blade in the other he stood, bending the weapon like a whip, whilst again he searchingly regarded his brother.

“Hear me a moment,” said he. “If you will force this unnatural quarrel upon me, at least let the thing be decently done. Not here, not in these cramped quarters, but out in the open let our meeting take place. If the captain, there, will act for you, I’ll find a friend to do me the like service.”

“We settle this matter here and now,” Marius answered him, in a tone of calm finality.

“But if I were to kill you—” Florimond began.

“Reassure yourself,” said Marius with an ugly smile.

“Very well, then; either alternative will suit the case I wish to put. If you were to kill me—it may be ranked as murder. The irregularity of it could not be overlooked.”

“The captain, here, will act for both of us.”

“I am entirely at your service, gentlemen,” replied Fortunio pleasantly, bowing to each in turn.

Florimond considered him. “I do not like his looks,” he objected. “He may be the friend of your bosom, Marius; you may have no secrets from him; but for my part, frankly, I should prefer the presence of some friend of my own to keep his blade engaged.”

The Marquis’s manner was affable in the extreme. Now that it was settled that they must fight, he appeared to have cast aside all scruples based upon their consanguinity, and he discussed the affair with the greatest bonhomie, as though he were disposing of a matter of how they should sit down to table.

It gave them pause. The change was too abrupt. They did not like it. It was as the calm that screens some surprise. Yet it was impossible he should have been forewarned; impossible he could have had word of how they proposed to deal with him.

Marius shrugged his shoulders.

“There is reason in what you say,” he acknowledged; “but I am in haste. I cannot wait while you go in search of a friend.”

“Why then,” he answered, with a careless laugh, “I must raise one from the dead.”

Both stared at him. Was he mad? Had the fever touched his brain? Was that healthy colour but the brand of a malady that rendered him delirious?

“Dieu! How you stare!” he continued, laughing in their faces. “You shall see something to compensate you for your journey, messieurs. I have learnt some odd tricks in Italy; they are a curious people beyond the Alps. What did you say was the name of the man the Queen had sent from Paris?—he who lies at the bottom of the moat of Condillac?”

“Let there be an end to this jesting,” growled Marius. “On guard, Monsieur le Marquis!”

“Patience! patience!” Florimond implored him. “You shall have your way with me, I promise you. But of your charity, messieurs, tell me first the name of that man.”

“It was Garnache,” said Fortunio, “and if the information will serve you, it was I who slew him.”

“You?” cried Florimond. “Tell me of it, I beg you.”

“Do you fool us?” questioned Marius in a rage that overmastered his astonishment, his growing suspicion that here all was not quite as it seemed.

“Fool you? But no. I do but wish to show you something that I learned in Italy. Tell me how you slew him, Monsieur le Capitaine.”

“I think we are wasting time,” said the captain, angry too. He felt that this smiling gentleman was deriding the pair of them; it crossed his mind that for some purpose of his own the Marquis was seeking to gain time. He drew his sword.

Florimond saw the act, watched it, and his eyes twinkled. Suddenly Marius’s sword shot out at him. He leapt back beyond the table, and threw himself on guard, his lips still wreathed in their mysterious smile.

“The time has come, messieurs,” said he. “I should have preferred to know more of how you slew that Monsieur de Garnache; but since you deny me the information, I shall do my best without it. I’ll try to conjure up his ghost, to keep you entertained, Monsieur le Capitaine.” And then, raising his voice, his sword, engaging now his brother’s:

“Ola, Monsieur de Garnache!” he cried. “To me!”

And then it seemed to those assassins that the Marquis had been neither mad nor boastful when he had spoken of strange things he had learned beyond the Alps, or else it was they themselves were turned light-headed, for the doors of a cupboard at the far end of the room flew open suddenly, and from between them stepped the stalwart figure of Martin de Garnache, a grim smile lifting the corners of his mustachios, a naked sword in his hand flashing back the sunlight that flooded through the window.

They paused, aghast, and they turned ashen; and then in the mind of each arose the same explanation of this phenomenon. This Garnache wore the appearance of the man who had announced himself by that name when he came to Condillac a fortnight ago. Then, the sallow, black-haired knave who had last night proclaimed himself as Garnache in disguise was some impostor. That was the conclusion they promptly arrived at, and however greatly they might be dismayed by the appearance of this ally of Florimond’s, yet the conclusion heartened them anew. But scarce had they arrived at it when Monsieur de Garnache’s crisp voice came swiftly to dispel it.

“Monsieur le Capitaine,” it said, and Fortunio shivered at the sound, for it was the voice he had heard but a few hours ago, “I welcome the opportunity of resuming our last night’s interrupted sword-play.” And he advanced deliberately.

Marius’s sword had fallen away from his brother’s, and the two combatants stood pausing. Fortunio without more ado made for the door. But Garnache crossed the intervening space in a bound.

“Turn!” he cried. “Turn, or I’ll put my sword through your back. The door shall serve you presently, but it is odds that it will need a couple of men to bear you through it. Look to your dirty skin!”