s? When a spider makes love
to his lady he dances before her to infatuate her, and then in a moment
of her delighted aberration snatches at her affections. Is it the way of
the spider then?"

With a snarl as of a wild beast, Louis Racine sprang forward and struck
Fournel in the face with his clinched fist. Then, as Fournel, blinded,
staggered back upon the book-shelves, he snatched two antique swords
from the wall. Throwing one on the floor in front of the Englishman,
he ran to the door and locked it, and turned round, the sword grasped
firmly in his hand, and white with rage.

"Spider! Spider! By Heaven, you shall have the spider dance before you!"
he said hoarsely. He had mistaken Fournel's meaning. He had put the most
horrible construction upon it. He thought that Fournel referred to his
deformity, and had ruthlessly dragged in Madelinette as well.

He was like a being distraught. His long brown hair was tossed over his
blanched forehead and piercing black eyes. His head was thrown forward
even more than his deformity compelled, his white teeth showed in a
grimace of hatred; he was half-crouched, like an animal ready to spring.

"Take up the sword, or I'll run you through the heart where you stand,"
he continued, in a hoarse whisper. "I will give you till I can count
three. Then by the God in Heaven--!"

Fournel felt that he had to deal with a man demented. The blow he
had received had laid open the flesh on his cheek-bone, and blood
was flowing from the wound. Never in his life before had he been so
humiliated. And by a Frenchman--it roused every instinct of race-hatred
in him. Yet he wanted not to go at him with a sword, but with his two
honest hands, and beat him into a whining submission. But the man was
deformed, he had none of his own robust strength--he was not to be
struck, but to be tossed out of the way like an offending child.

He staunched the blood from his face and made a step forward without a
word, determined not to fight, but to take the weapon from the other's
hands. "Coward!" said the Seigneur. "You dare not fight with the sword.
With the sword we are even. I am as strong as you there--stronger, and
I will have your blood. Coward! Coward! Coward! I will give you till I
count three. One!... Two!..."

Fournel did not stir. He could not make up his mind what to do. Cry out?
No one could come in time to prevent the onslaught--and onslaught there
would be, he knew. There was a merciless hatred in