glaring at the lad who so recklessly insulted him. And then he checked.
It may be that he remembered suddenly the relationship in which this
young man was popularly believed to stand to the Seigneur de Gavrillac,
and the well-known affection in which the Seigneur held him. And so he
may have realized that if he pushed this matter further, he might find
himself upon the horns of a dilemma. He would be confronted with the
alternatives of shedding more blood, and so embroiling himself with the
Lord of Gavrillac at a time when that gentleman's friendship was of the
first importance to him, or else of withdrawing with such hurt to his
dignity as must impair his authority in the countryside hereafter.

Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short; then,
with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and contempt, he tossed
his arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.

When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-Louis, his arms
about the body of his dead friend, murmuring passionately into the deaf
ear that rested almost against his lips:

"Philippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippe... Don't you hear me? O God
of Heaven! Philippe!"

At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor could avail.
The cheek that lay against Andre-Louis's was leaden-hued, the half-open
eyes were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the
vacuously parted lips.

Half blinded by tears Andre-Louis stumbled after them when they bore the
body into the inn. Upstairs in the little room to which they conveyed
it, he knelt by the bed, and holding the dead man's hand in both his
own, he swore to him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour d'Azyr
should pay a bitter price for this.

"It was your eloquence he feared, Philippe," he said. "Then if I can
get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The
thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be
swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men
shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall
be my heritage from you. I will make them my own. It matters nothing
that I do not believe in your gospel of freedom. I know it--every word of
it; that is all that matters to our purpose, yours and mine. If all else
fails, your thoughts shall find expression in my living tongue. Thus
at least we shall have frustrated his vile aim to still the voice h