e coals
through the mask-holes now--her figure shook all over; one hand
clutched the coarse cover on the table in a mass of folds; the other
tremblingly played with the hilt of her little dagger. And the
Brecquiny being near her, she more than once released the table cover
to pour out a glass full, drain it a draught, throw down the glass,
and glare at the combatants again.

Once, too, she shrieked aloud as a second time St. Georges's weapon,
lunging full at the other's breast, was just caught by the hilt of De
Roquemaure's sword and parried, though not without tearing from his
breast a piece of the lace from his cravat. And she struck herself on
the mouth with her clinched hand--so that her lips were bloody a
moment after--as though in rage with herself for having done aught to
alarm the house.

"You are doomed," St. Georges said to De Roquemaure in a low voice,
driving him back toward the wall, so that now the latter faced up the
room while the former's back was toward the table--"doomed! I have you
fast. Acknowledge all, or by the God above us I slay you in the next
pass!"

De Roquemaure made no answer; doggedly he fought--a horrible
spectacle. Another thrust of St. Georges's was, however, also
parried--the blade knocked nervously up by the affrighted man--bearing
a piece of flesh from De Roquemaure's cheek, from which the blood ran
down on to what was left of the cravat; the eyes glared like a hunted
animal's; the mouth was half open.

It almost required St. Georges's memory of his lost Dorine, of the
manner in which they had aimed under his arm at her--so appalled did
his adversary appear--to prevent him from sparing the craven, from
disarming him, and letting him go forth a whipped and beaten hound.
But he remembered the wrong done him, the cruel, dastardly attempts on
the child's life--and his blood was up. De Roquemaure should die. "The
wolf was face to face with him"--at that moment he recalled the
marquise's words--he would slay him.

Behind his back the other could see the woman--even as he endeavoured
to shield himself from thrust after thrust, and thought: "God! when
will it come? when shall I feel the steel through me?"--herself now a
ghastly sight. Her upper lip was drawn back in her frenzy so that her
teeth were bare as are a dog's that pauses ere it snaps; she was
standing up trembling, as with a palsy, and her mask had fallen off.
And, in what De Roquemaure felt were his last moments, he saw her