one
hand. "The last time within a foot or so. By every rule of single combat
your life belongs to me. That does not mean that I want to take it now."

"I have no use for your forbearance," muttered General Feraud savagely.

"Allow me to point out that this is no concern of mine," said General
D'Hubert, whose every word was dictated by a consummate delicacy of
feeling. In anger, he could have killed that man, but in cold blood, he
recoiled from humiliating this unreasonable being--a fellow soldier
of the Grand Armee, his companion in the wonders and terrors of the
military epic. "You don't set up the pretension of dictating to me what
I am to do with what is my own."

General Feraud looked startled. And the other continued:

"You've forced me on a point of honour to keep my life at your disposal,
as it were, for fifteen years. Very well. Now that the matter is decided
to my advantage, I am going to do what I like with your life on the same
principle. You shall keep it at my disposal as long as I choose. Neither
more nor less. You are on your honour."

"I am! But _sacrebleu!_ This is an absurd position for a general of
the empire to be placed in," cried General Feraud, in the accents of
profound and dismayed conviction. "It means for me to be sitting all the
rest of my life with a loaded pistol in a drawer waiting for your word.
It's... it's idiotic. I shall be an object of... of... derision."

"Absurd?... Idiotic? Do you think so?" queried argumentatively General
D'Hubert with sly gravity. "Perhaps. But I don't see how that can be
helped. However, I am not likely to talk at large of this adventure.
Nobody need ever know anything about it. Just as no one to this day, I
believe, knows the origin of our quarrel.... Not a word more," he added
hastily. "I can't really discuss this question with a man who, as far as
I am concerned, does not exist."

When the duellists came out into the open, General Feraud walking a
little behind and rather with the air of walking in a trance, the two
seconds hurried towards them each from his station at the edge of the
wood. General D'Hubert addressed them, speaking loud and distinctly:

"Messieurs! I make it a point of declaring to you solemnly in the
presence of General Feraud that our difference is at last settled for
good. You may inform all the world of that fact."

"A reconciliation after all!" they exclaimed together.

"Reconciliation? Not that exactly. It is something much m