"Half-past five!"

Joubert was standing by the window, my bath-towels over his arm. He had drawn up the blind, and the light of early morning filled the room. I could have cursed Joubert, for he had awakened me from a most lovely dream.

In a full blaze of sunlight I had been walking in the gardens of Lichtenberg with Eloise; we were children again, and little Carl was marching before us, beating his drum. Past the fountains, past the Running Man carved in stone, we went, then into the shade of the forest, led by little Carl towards some great but indefinable happiness.

"Where are they?" I murmured, half unconscious that I was speaking, and rubbing my eyes as if to bring back the happy vision.

"Who?" asked Joubert.

I did not answer him. Who, indeed? Those children for ever vanished.

I dressed rapidly, and breakfasted. I felt both nervous and excited, exactly as I had felt on the night of the production of "Undine."

Then I sat down to write a line to Franzius and Eloise.

I had divided my property, in case of my death, leaving half to my guardian and half to Eloise. The will was with our lawyer, and I said so in a postscript to my note. When I had finished, Joubert appeared.

"The carriage is at the door."

I sealed the letter, and handed it to him.

"In case of accidents," said I, "post this."

Joubert saluted, and put it in his pocket without glancing at the superscription.

Joubert was grave. He had never saluted me before, except in a spirit of half mockery—the way one would salute a child.

I had been a child in his eyes until now, but now I was evidently a man, his master; and nothing seemed, up to this, to have divided me so sharply from my childhood and my past as this suddenly begotten change in Joubert's manner; and as I stepped from the hall-door on to the pavement I felt that I was stepping for the first time into the world of manhood; that all had been play with me till now, and that now, this morning, the grim business of life had begun.

Joubert got on the box beside the coachman, and we started.

The early sun was bright on the trees and houses of the Champs ElysÉes; the trees of the Bois de Boulogne were waving in the early morning breeze; all was bright and all was fair; and it seemed a pity—a thousand pities—to have to die a morning like this, to shut one's eyes for ever, and never more see the sun.

As we drew near our destination, I felt exactly as I often had felt in childhood when at the door of the dentist's: a strong desire to return home, coupled with a strong repugnance to face what had to be done.

The avenue of the Minimes has vanished. It was a lovely place, tree-sheltered and leading by a pond where the green rushes whispered beneath silvery willows, making a picture after the heart of Puvis de Chavannes. It opened out of a broad drive, and was a favourite spot for the settlement of affairs of honour.

"We are first," cried Joubert, turning his head.

I stood up. Yes; there was no other carriage; in fact, we were ten minutes before our time—a great mistake, for a ten minutes' wait in an affair of this description is one of the most unsettling things possible for the nerves of a man. We drew up near the entrance to the Avenue des Minimes, and, getting out, I paced up and down, for the early morning was chilly, though it gave promise of a glorious day.

Ah! here they came—at least, some of them. A carriage rapidly driven was coming along the drive. There were three gentlemen in it, my seconds, De Brissac and M. de Champfleury, and a tall personage who turned out to be Colonel Savernac, the extra friend whom I had asked De Brissac to bring.

We had scarcely exchanged greetings when another carriage arrived, containing De Coigny and Baron Struve—who were the seconds of the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg—and Dr. Pons, the surgeon.

The seconds of either party bowed one to the other.

De Brissac took out his watch.

"What time do you make it, M. de Coigny?"

"Five minutes to the hour," replied De Coigny.

"Ah! I make it the hour. My watch is set by the Observatory clock. Still, perhaps it may have gone wrong. Make it, then, five minutes to the hour. And hi! there! Move on those carriages. We are as noticeable as the front of the Opera House; and should a mounted gendarme come this way there will be trouble."

"Monsieur," said Joubert, jumping down as the carriages moved off, "you promised."

"Yes," said I, half to Joubert, half to De Brissac. "I promised. You may remain as a spectator—at a distance."

"A servant!" said De Coigny.

"No, Monsieur de Coigny," I replied; "a faithful friend, and a soldier of Napoleon."

De Coigny turned on his heel, and began talking to Dr. Pons, who stood with a mahogany case under his arm.

"Notice," I said to De Brissac. "De Coigny has turned his back upon me; but within an hour's time, if I do not fall by the sword of Von Lichtenberg, I will require him to turn his face to me."

"You are going to——"

"Kill him," I replied.

De Brissac shrugged his shoulders, and looked again at his watch.

"I make it five minutes past the hour, M. de Coigny."

De Coigny looked at his watch and nodded.

"By the way," I heard Champfleury say to one of my adversary's seconds, "has anyone seen anything of M. le Baron Carl von Lichtenberg during the last three months?"

"I have not," replied the gentleman addressed, "nor have I met anyone who has. The Prussian Embassy people do not know anything of his whereabouts: he has had leave of absence."

"Rest assured," said De Coigny, "he will arrive. He is not a coward."

"All the same, he is late," said De Brissac.

I looked at my watch. It was now ten minutes past seven, an inexcusable delay on Von Lichtenberg's part, unless, indeed, some accident had occurred.

Five more minutes slowly passed; the sun had now completely freed himself from the mists of the Bois; the light struck down the path; it struck the mahogany instrument-case under the arm of Dr. Pons, and the hilts of the rapiers which De Brissac was carrying concealed in the folds of a long, fawn-coloured overcoat.

"At twenty minutes past," said De Brissac, "I shall declare the duel postponed. I shall take my principal home and I shall demand an explanation, M. de Coigny."

Scarcely had he spoken than Dr. Pons, who had been looking along the drive in the direction of the Champs ElysÉes, cried: "Here he comes."

A closed carriage, drawn by two magnificent Orloff horses, had entered the broad drive and was advancing at full speed. I do not know how the weird impression came to me, but the closed carriage drawn by the black Russian horses suggested to me a funeral-carriage; and before it, as it came, the sunlight seemed to wither from the drive.

A few paces from us the coachman literally brought the horses on their haunches, the door of the carriage opened, and a lady stepped out.

A girl of about eighteen, an apparition so exquisite, so full of grace, so bright, so unexpected, that the men around me, used to beauty, world-worn and cynical as they were, said no word, and remained motionless as statues, whilst I clung to the arm of De Brissac.

For the girl was Margaret von Lichtenberg—Margaret von Lichtenberg, little Carl, Baron Carl, all these apotheosised! And as I looked, a voice—Eloise's childish voice, heard long years ago—again murmured in my ear:

"Little Carl is a girl."

Then I knew that it was she—the woman so mysteriously bound up in my life; and as a man drowning remembers his whole past, in a flash of thought I remembered all: Von Lichtenberg's mad attempt to assassinate me, his dying words; the apparition of little Carl that had lured me into the gravelpit and lamed me for life; Baron Carl von Lichtenberg and his pursuit of me; my fight against Fate; my own words: "I will not—I will not! I am a living man with a will of my own; no dead Fate shall lead me or drive me." But I had never thought of this. I had played against Fate, and now I felt dimly that I had lost. I had not suspected this card which the dealer had slipped up his sleeve, and which now appeared to confound me, this lovely being, whose voice I now heard addressing De Coigny:

"I have come on behalf of Baron Carl von Lichtenberg. There is no longer a Baron Carl von Lichtenberg. He is dead."

"Listen," whispered De Brissac, clutching my arm. "This is very strange! I would swear it was the Baron Carl himself speaking. And she is like him. It must, then, be his sister."

"On his behalf," she went on, "I apologise to M. Patrick Mahon; and I am commissioned by him, M. de Coigny, in return for all the lies and evil words you have spoken about M. Mahon, to give you this." And she struck De Coigny on the face lightly with her gloved hand.

Then I woke up, and I felt the blood surge to my face as I stepped forward. She turned to me, with her lips half parted in a glad smile; our eyes met. God! in that moment how my whole being leapt alive! Bursting and rending its husk, my imprisoned spirit broke free, as a dragon-fly breaks free touched by the sun's magic wand. I heard myself speak; I was speaking coldly and distinctly, addressing De Coigny, and yet all my soul was addressing her in delirious unspoken words.

"M. de Coigny," said the voice which came from my lips, "we are, I believe, old enemies. I have forgotten all that, but the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg's quarrels are now mine; and if your craven heart will allow you to hold a sword, I beg to take his place."

What then followed is like a dream in my mind. I heard the seconds consulting. I heard Dr. Pons' voice speaking in a tone of relief: "So then we are to have some music after all!" I held two warm hands in mine, and I heard myself saying: "Yes, yes, you will stay here. I shall not be long. Oh, no; I shall not be killed! I will return. To be killed would be too absurd now. Wait for me."

Then, leaning on De Brissac's arm, I was walking down the Avenue des Minimes, and now, sword in hand, I was fronting De Coigny.

* * * * *

He was backgrounded by the willows, all silvering to the breeze, and his hateful face filled me with a fury that rose in my throat and which I had to gulp down. He was the only thing that stood between me and the heaven that had just been revealed to me; he was there with a sword in his hand, as if to bar me out and cut me off for ever from it. He was everything I hated, and the power of hate had suddenly risen gigantic in my breast, shouting for his blood.

Then we fought, and I found myself commanding myself, just as a drunken man commands himself to stand straight and be cool. Sometimes I saw his face, and sometimes I saw it not, yet ever I knew that I held him with my eye as a fowler holds a bird in his hand.

Had anyone been wandering by the pool of the Minimes, he might have fancied that he heard the cry of a seagull—a single, melancholy cry; for it is crying thus that a man's soul escapes when he is stricken through the heart.