step, and I turned to find her
behind me.

Her face was like April, smiles breaking through her tears. As she
stood with a tall hedge of sunflowers behind her, I started to see how
beautiful she was.

'I am here in search of you, M. de Barthe,' she said, colouring
slightly, perhaps because my eyes betrayed my thought; 'to thank you.
You have not fought, and yet you have conquered. My woman has just been
with me, and she tells me that they are going.'

'Going?' I said, 'Yes, Mademoiselle, they are leaving the house.'

She did not understand my reservation.

'What magic have you used?' she said almost gaily; it was wonderful how
hope had changed her. 'Besides, I am curious to learn how you managed to
avoid fighting.'

'After taking a blow?' I said bitterly.

'Monsieur, I did not mean that,' she said reproachfully.

But her face clouded. I saw that, viewed in this light--in which,
I suppose, she had not hitherto--the matter perplexed her more than
before.

I took a sudden resolution.

'Have you ever heard, Mademoiselle,' I said gravely, plucking off while
I spoke the dead leaves from a plant beside me, 'of a gentleman by name
De Berault? Known in Paris, I have heard, by the sobriquet of the Black
Death?'

'The duellist?' she answered, looking at me in wonder. 'Yes, I have
heard of him. He killed a young gentleman of this province at Nancy two
years back. 'It was a sad story,' she continued, shuddering slightly,
'of a dreadful man. God keep our friends from such!'

'Amen!' I said quietly. But, in spite of myself, I could not meet her
eyes.

'Why?' she answered, quickly taking alarm at; my silence. 'What of him,
M. de Barthe? Why have you mentioned him?'

'Because he is here, Mademoiselle.'

'Here?' she exclaimed. 'At Cocheforet?'

'Yes, Mademoiselle,' I answered soberly. 'I am he.'

CHAPTER X. CLON

'You!' she cried, in a voice which pierced my heart. 'You are M. de
Berault? It is impossible!' But, glancing askance at her--I could not
face her I saw that the blood had left her cheeks.

'Yes, Mademoiselle,' I answered in a low tone. 'De Barthe was my
mother's name. When I came here, a stranger, I took it that I might
not be known; that I might again speak to a good woman, and not see
her shrink. That, and--but why trouble you with all this?' I continued
rebelling, against her silence, her turned shoulder, her averted face.
'You asked me, Mademoiselle, how I could take a blow and let the striker