burst from the count's cracked lips. His sword was rolling at
his feet. It was the end. He shut his eyes.

The marquis drew back his arm to send the blade home, and there came a
change. At the very moment when victory must have been his, he
staggered, a black mist filming his eyes. The magic blade slipped from
his grasp and clanged to the floor. He tried to save himself, but he
could not. He fell by the side of his sword and lay there silent. His
strength, had been superhuman, the last flare of a burnt-out fire.

"Good God, and I never touched him!" gasped, D'Herouville. He was
covered with a cold sweat. "A moment more and I had been a dead man!"
He brushed his eyes, and his hand shook with a transient palsy.

There was a tableau: the aged noble stretched out beside his rapier,
D'Herouville leaning against the wall and wild-eyed . . . and a
black-robed figure standing in the doorway.

"Have you killed him?" asked the black-robed figure, stepping into the
room.

D'Herouville gazed at him, incapable of speaking.

"Have you killed him, I say?" repeated Brother Jacques.

D'Herouville choked, and presently found his voice. "I have not even
touched him. God is witness! He has been stricken by a vapor, or he
is dead."

"It is well for you, Monsieur, that your sword did not touch him. You
had better go."

The count's hand shook so that he could hardly put his rapier into the
scabbard. With a dazed glance at the marquis, who had not yet stirred,
with another glance at the priest, he passed out, holding the flat of
his hand against his side.

Immediately Brother Jacques bent over the fallen man.

"He lives; that is well. So I must go on to the end."

He poured out some wine and bathed the marquis's temples and wrists.
Next he lifted the old man in his arms and carried him to the bed,
undressed him, and covered him over. He drew a chair to the side of
the bed and sat down, waiting and watching. Occasionally his glance
wandered, to the sinking candles, to the moon outside, from the marbled
face on the pillow to the empty wine-glass on the small table. Once he
recollected seeing an envelope within a hand's span of the glass.

A duel! This palsied old man pressing youth and vigor to the wall! It
seemed incredible. What must this man have been in his prime? Age
vanquishing youth! A shiver ran across Brother Jacques's spine, a
shiver of admiration and wonder. He touched the withered hand which
h