rom his nerveless fingers and his knees bending under him, he fell
heavily backwards without a word escaping from his lips. Thrice he
endeavored to regain his feet, and thrice he failed in his attempts. He
strove to speak, but he could only utter a few unintelligible words,
for his life blood was suffocating him. A violent convulsion shook every
limb, then arose a long, deep-drawn sigh, and then silence--George de
Croisenois was dead.

Yes, he was dead, and Norbert de Champdoce stood over him with a wild
look of terror in his eyes, and his hair bristling upon his head, as
a shudder of horror convulsed his body. Then, for the first time, he
realized the horror of seeing a man slain by his own hand; and yet
what affected Norbert most was not that he had killed George de
Croisenois--for he believed that justice was on his side and that he
could not have acted otherwise--but the perspiration stood in thick
beads upon his forehead, as he thought that he must raise up that still
warm and quivering body, and place it in its unhallowed grave.

He hesitated and reasoned with himself for some time, going over all
the reasons that made dispatch so absolutely necessary--the risk of
detection, and the honor of his name.

He stooped and prepared to raise it, but recoiled again before his hands
had touched the body. His heart failed him, and once more he assumed an
erect position. At last he nerved himself, grasped the body, and, with
an immense exertion of strength, hurled it into the gaping grave. It
fell with a dull, heavy sound which seemed to Norbert like the roar of
an earthquake. The violent emotions which he had endured had ended
by acting on his brain, and, snatching up the spade which his late
antagonist had used with so unpracticed a hand, shovelled the earth upon
the body, flattened down the ground, and finally covered it with straw
and dead leaves.

"And this is the end of a man who wronged a Champdoce; yes, his life has
paid the penalty of his deed."

All at once, a few paces off, in the deep shadow of the trees, he
thought that he detected the outline of a human head with a pair of
glittering eyes fixed upon him. The shock was so terrible that for an
instant he stopped and nearly fell, but he quickly recovered himself,
and, snatching up his blood-stained sword, he dashed to the spot where
he fancied he had seen this terrible witness of his deed.

At this rapid movement on the part of the Duke, a figure started up