livery of an English groom, was waiting, "take care of this box."

"Am I going with you, my lord?" asked the servant.

"Yes!" replied Sir John.

Then showing Roland the steps of his carriage, which the servant
lowered, he said:

"Come, M. de Montrevel."

Roland entered the carriage and stretched himself out luxuriously.

"Upon my word!" said he. "It takes you English to understand travelling.
This carriage is as comfortable as a bed. I warrant you pad your coffins
before you are put in them!"

"Yes, that is a fact," said Sir John, "the English people
understand comfort, but the French people are much more curious and
amusing--postilion, to Vaucluse!"

CHAPTER IV. THE DUEL

The road was passable only from Avignon to l'Isle. They covered the nine
miles between the two places in an hour. During this hour Roland, as he
resolved to shorten the time for his travelling companion, was witty
and animated, and their approach to the duelling ground only served to
redouble his gayety. To one unacquainted with the object of this
drive, the menace of dire peril impending over this young man, with
his continuous flow of conversation and incessant laughter, would have
seemed incredible.

At the village of l'Isle they were obliged to leave the carriage.
Finding on inquiry that they were the first to arrive, they entered the
path which led to the fountain.

"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Roland, "there ought to be a fine echo here." And he
gave one or two cries to which Echo replied with perfect amiability.

"By my faith!" said the young man, "this is a marvellous echo. I know
none save that of the Seinonnetta, at Milan, which can compare with it.
Listen, my lord."

And he began, with modulations which revealed an admirable voice and an
excellent method, to sing a Tyrolean song which seemed to bid defiance
to the human throat with its rebellious music. Sir John watched Roland,
and listened to him with an astonishment which he no longer took the
trouble to conceal. When the last note had died away among the cavities
of the mountain, he exclaimed:

"God bless me! but I think your liver is out of order."

Roland started and looked at him interrogatively. But seeing that Sir
John did not intend to say more, he asked:

"Good! What makes you think so?"

"You are too noisily gay not to be profoundly melancholy."

"And that anomaly astonishes you?"

"Nothing astonishes me, because I know that it has always its reason for
exi