“Doubtless,” replied the tyrant, dryly, “but the duke well knows—despite his cursed pride—that the result of another meeting with you could not but be disastrous to himself. He has tried the strength of your blade, and learned by bitter experience that its point is sharp. You may be sure that he hates you like the very devil, and will not scruple to make use of any means whatever to revenge himself for his defeat at your hands.” “Well, if he does not care to try my sword again, we could fight on horseback with pistols. He could not accuse me of having any advantage of him there.” Talking thus the two had reached the Quai de l’Ecole, and there a carriage just missed running over de Sigognac, though he did his best to get out of its way. As it was, only his extremely slender figure saved him from being crushed between it and the wall, so close did it come to him—notwithstanding the fact that there was plenty of room on the other side, and that the coachman could easily have avoided the foot passenger he actually seemed to pursue. The windows of the carriage were all closed, and the curtains drawn down, so that it was impossible to tell whether it had any inmates or not—but if de Sigognac could have peeped within he would have seen, reclining languidly upon the luxurious cushions, a handsome young nobleman, richly dressed, whose right arm was supported by a black silk scarf, arranged as a sling. In spite of the warm red glow from the crimson silk curtains, he was very pale, and, though so remarkably handsome, his face wore such an expression of hatred and cruelty, that he would have inspired dislike, rather than admiration—as he sat there with a fierce frown contracting his brow, and savagely gnawing his under lip with his gleaming white teeth. In fine, the occupant of the carriage that had so nearly run over the Baron de Sigognac was no other than the young Duke of Vallombreuse. “Another failure!” said he to himself, with an oath, as he rolled along up the broad quay past the Tuileries. “And yet I promised that stupid rascal of a coachman of mine twenty-five _louis_ if he could be adroit enough to run afoul of that confounded de Sigognac—who is the bane of my life—and drive over him, as if by accident. Decidedly the star of my destiny is not in the ascendant—this miserable little rustic lordling gets the better of me in everything. Isabelle, sweet Isabelle, adores _him_, and detests me—he has beaten my lackeys, and dared to wound _me_. But there shall be an end of this sort of thing, and that speedily—even though he be invulnerable, and bear a charmed life, he must and shall be put out of my way—I swear it! though I should be forced to risk my name and my title to compass it.”