'
'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.
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