e! shame!" was the cry around the room.

"Gentlemen of the Bodyguard," said Collinot, "I must remind you where
you are."

D'Amoreau and the Baron led Germain off to his chamber. There they sat
down, and d'Amoreau wrote out a challenge, which Grancey, whom Lecour
chose as his second, delivered without delay.

Germain was strung to a frightful tension. When his companions, at
Grancey's suggestion, left him alone, he locked the doors and a storm of
apprehensions took hold upon him. The situation presented itself in two
deadly alternatives, either his annihilation in eternal darkness, or
else that his rapier must let out the red life-stream of a man who,
hateful though he might be, was but a speaker of the truth. In that
case, all would come out and justice have to be settled with, both human
and divine. Yes, that extreme justice--to be banished for ever out of
the world of Cyrene. Was it not the better alternative to permit himself
to die by the first thrust of de Lery?

CHAPTER XXVI

A DUEL

Nothing pleased de Lotbiniere better than shaping a policy. His dark
eyes were constantly full of plan, whether they looked at you or into
the masses of a boulevard flowing with people, or at his own prospects
or those of his family pictured in the future.

Upon the mother-of-pearl writing-desk in front of him lay his journal,
containing, in a close and perfect handwriting--of a piece with his
skill as a Royal Engineer in military designing--an industrious account
of whatever incidents seemed from day to day of use to him. The entry
visible at the head of the new page read--"Repentigny absolutely refuses
to prosecute the impostor."

The Marquis, however, was for the moment engaged upon a letter pressing
his interests with the Minister, and in which he was composing the
sentence--"Thus, my Lord, I find myself again in possession of the happy
privilege of humbly recalling to you my services, resulting, with those
of General Montcalm, in the great victories of Ticonderoga and Fort
William Henry, and I----"

He reached the bell-rope and pulled it. His servant immediately entered.

"You will take this letter which I am signing to the Palace of the
Louvre, where you will ask for the third supernumerary private Secretary
of the Minister, to whom you are to hand it with the money there on the
table, and say that it is sent by the Marquis de Lotbiniere. Repeat the
name _twice_ very distinctly to him, and see there is no mis