“On my arrival at that vast metropolis, I instituted a cautious enquiry after his present abode, which I felt certain would ultimately place him within my grasp. Meantime I began a course of daily practice at a neighboring pistol-gallery, and soon became so proficient that I could split a ball, at twelve paces, nine times out of ten, upon the edge of a knife. Nor did I neglect fencing. I became by constant attention an invincible swordsman. “But months, aye! years elapsed, and still he evaded my grasp. He hurried from one land to another, under a dozen disguises, but though delayed by my anxiety to be perfectly certain of the road he had adopted, I was ever like the blood-hound on his path. Fly where he would, the AVENGER OF BLOOD was behind him. Thrice he flew to Paris, once he hurried to Rome, twice he hid himself in the Russian capital, four times he visited England under different names, two several times he crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic, and once for nearly a whole year, during which he went on a voyage to Calcutta, I almost lost sight of him. But I recovered the clue at his return. Years had only whetted my appetite for revenge. My determination was when I met him, to goad him by insult into an honorable encounter, and if this could not be done, to shoot him in the street like a dog. “Fortune favored me at length. It was scarcely a month after his return from the East Indies, when I learned that three days before he had set out for Paris. Thither, like the angel of death, I pursued him. “It was the second night of my arrival at Paris, when I stepped into a noted gambling-house in the Rue des ——. The apartment was brilliantly lighted, and in the ostentatious luxury of its furniture reminded one of a fairy palace. It was densely crowded. I sauntered up to a table where they were playing _vingt et un_, and carelessly threw down a guinea upon the chance. I won. I was about turning indifferently away, when an individual approached the table, whom, even under his disguise, I recognised, in a moment, to be Conway. He threw down his stake. At that instant his eye caught mine. Never had I seen human countenance change so fearfully as his did during the instant of recognition. It quivered in every nerve. He turned paler than ashes. I looked at him, for a moment, sternly and calmly. His eye fell before mine. In an instant, however, he recovered, in a measure, his equanimity, and turning away with an air of affected indifference, whistled a careless tune. I stepped up to him. “‘Dr. Conway,’ said I, ‘you are a scoundrel.’ “‘Sir, sir,’ stammered the abashed villain in French, affecting not to know me, ‘you mistake your man. _I_ am Monsieur De Rivers, at your service.’