D'Herouville, cold with
fury, forgetting his newly healed wound.

"What worried me most was the fear that you might not understand me.
Permit me to show you the way, Monsieur."

The marquis was the calmer of the two. A strange and springing new
life seemed to have entered his watery veins. A flare of the old-time
fire rose up within him: he was again the prince of a hundred duels.
On reaching the room, he lit all the candles and arranged them so as to
leave no shadows. Next he poured out a glass of wine and drank it,
drew his rapier, and bared his arm.

At the sight of that arm, thin and white, D'Herouville felt all his ire
ooze from his pores. He could not measure swords with this old man,
who stood near enough to his grave without being sent into it offhand.

"Monsieur, forgive me for striking an old man, who is visibly my
inferior in strength and youth. My anger got the better of me. Your
courage compels my admiration. I can not fight you."

The marquis spat upon the floor. "On guard, Monsieur!"

"If you insist;" and D'Herouville stepped forward carelessly.

The blades came together. Then followed a sight for the paladins. For
it took D'Herouville but a moment to learn why the marquis had been
called the prince of a hundred duels. Only twice in his life had he
met such a master.

"I am old, eh, Monsieur?" said the marquis, making an assault which
D'Herouville, had his blade swerved the breadth of a hair, would never
have neutralized.

Back, step by step, he was forced, till he felt his shoulders touch the
wall. He was beginning to suffer cruelly. A warmth on his side told
him that his old wound had opened and was bleeding. Good God! and if
this old man at whom he had laughed should kill him! With a desperate
return he succeeded in regaining the open. He tried the offensive, it
was too late. The marquis, describing a circle, toppled over a candle,
which rolled across the floor and was snuffed in its own melting wax.

The marquis's eyes burned like carbuncles; his blade was like living
light. He spoke.

"I am old; beware of old dogs that have teeth."

Round and round they circled, back and forth. D'Herouville was
fighting for his life. His own wonderful mastery, and this alone, kept
the life in his body. Sometimes it seemed that he must be in a dream,
the victim of some terrible nightmare. For the marquis's face did not
look human, animated as it was with the lust to kill.

"God!"