"I fear not, my son. I do not know how much blood I lose at every word I speak. _Parbleu_! you have the art of making a mighty hole with that toy of yours, monsieur!" This man, so grave and severe in the usual affairs of life, could take on a tone of pleasantry while enduring pain and facing death. "Monsieur," I cried, in great distress, "you must not die. I will save you. I shall go for a surgeon. Oh, my God, monsieur, tell me what to do to save your life!" "You will find my lackeys, two of them, at the cabaret at the next corner. It is closed, but knock hard and call for Jacques. Send him to me, and the other for a surgeon." De Noyard was manifestly growing weaker, and he spoke with great difficulty. Not daring to trust to any knowledge of my own as to immediate or temporary treatment of his wound, I made the greatest haste to follow his directions. I ran out of the chamber, down the stairs, and out to the street, finding the doors neither locked nor barred, and meeting no human being. Mlle. d'Arency and her companion had silently disappeared. I went, in my excitement, first to the wrong corner. Then, discovering my blunder, I retraced my steps, and at last secured admittance to the place where De Noyard's valets tarried. To the man who opened the door, I said, "Are you Jacques, the serving-man of Monsieur de Noyard?" "I am nobody's serving man," was the reply, in a tone of indignation; but a second man who had come to the door spoke up, "I am Jacques." "Hallo, Monsieur de la Tournoire," came a voice from a group of men seated at a table. "Come and join us, and show my friends how you fellows of the French Guards can drink!" It was De Rilly, very merry with wine. "I cannot, De Rilly," I replied, stepping into the place. "I have very important business elsewhere." Then I turned to Jacques and said, quietly, "Go, at once, to your master, and send your comrade for a surgeon to follow you there. Do you know the house in which he is?" The servant made no answer, but turned pale. "Come!" he said to another servant, who had joined him from an obscure corner of the place. The two immediately lighted torches and left, from which fact I inferred that Jacques knew where to find his master. "What is all this mystery?" cried De Rilly, jovially, rising and coming over to me, while the man who had opened the door, and who was evidently the host, closed it and moved away. "Come, warm yourself with a bottle! Why, my friend, you are as white as a ghost, and you look as if you had been perspiring blood!" "I must go, at once, De Rilly. It is a serious matter." "Then hang me if I don't come, too!" he said, suddenly sobered, and he grasped his cloak and sword. "That is, unless I should be _de trop_." "Come. I thank you," I said; and we left the place together. "Whose blood is it?" asked De Rilly, as we hurried along the narrow street, back to the house. "That of M. de Noyard." "What? A duel?" "A kind of duel,--a strange mistake!