e an incentive for you to conceal my death as I should
conceal yours."

"That will not be sufficient for me," returned De Croisenois.

"Ah! take care," sneered Norbert, "or I shall begin to think that you
are afraid."

"I _am_ afraid; that is, afraid of being called a murderer."

"That is a danger to which I am equally liable with yourself."

Croisenois, however, was fully determined to carry his point. "You say,"
continued he, "that our chances are equal; but if I fall, who would
dream of searching here for my remains? You are in your own house and
can take every precaution; but suppose, on the other hand, I kill
you. Shall I look to the Duchess to assist me? Will not the finger of
suspicion be pointed at her? Shall she say to her gardener when all
Paris is hunting for you, 'Mind that you do not meddle with the piece of
land at the end of the garden.'"

The thought of the anonymous letter crossed Norbert's mind, and he
remembered that the writer of it must be acquainted with the coming of
George de Croisenois. "What do you propose then?" asked he.

"Merely that each of us, without stating the grounds of our quarrel,
write down the conditions and sign our names as having accepted them."

"I agree; but use dispatch."

The two men, after the conditions had been described, wrote two letters,
dated from a foreign country, and the survivor of the combat was to post
his dead adversary's letter, which would not fail to stop any search
after the vanished man. When this talk was concluded, Norbert rose to
his feet.

"One word in conclusion," said he: "a soldier is leading the horse on
which I rode here up and down in the Place des Invalides. If you kill
me, go and take the horse from the man, giving him the twenty francs I
promised him."

"I will."

"Now let us go down."

They left the room together. Norbert was stepping aside to permit
Croisenois to descend the stairs first, when he felt his coat gently
pulled, and, turning round, saw that the Duchess, too weak to rise to
her feet, had crawled to him on her knees. The unhappy woman had heard
everything, and in an almost inaudible voice she uttered an agonized
prayer:

"Mercy, Norbert! Have mercy! I swear to you that I am guiltless. You
never loved me, why should you fight for me. Have pity! To-morrow, by
all that I hold sacred, I swear to you that I will enter a convent, and
you shall never see my face again. Have pity!"

"Pray heaven, madame, that it may be