He fell back upon his chair, suffocated, strangled by the confession that wrath had extorted from him at last. XXIX The marquis was thunderstruck by this outbreak, for which he was entirely unprepared, the culprit had up to that moment put so bold a face on the matter, and made his frequent interruptions with so natural an air. He recovered first, as may be imagined, and grasping D'Alvimar's convulsively twitching wrist with his long, sinewy hand: "Miserable wretch!" he exclaimed with crushing contempt, "you should thank Heaven for making you my guest; for, were it not for the promise I have given to protect you, a promise which protects you from myself, I would beat out your brains against the wall of this room!" Lucilio, fearing a struggle, had seized the knife which lay on the table. D'Alvimar saw his movement and was afraid. He threw off the marquis's hands and grasped the hilt of his sword. "Let your mind be at rest, fear nothing in this house," said Bois-Doré, calmly. "_We_ are not assassins!" "Nor am I, monsieur," rejoined D'Alvimar, seemingly overcome by this dignified procedure, "and since you do not propose to disregard the laws of honor, I will attempt to justify myself." "Justify yourself? Nonsense! you are convicted and doomed by your contradiction of me, and that is why I disdain to notice it!" "Keep your disdain for those who endure insult in silence. If I had done so, you would not have suspected me! I repelled the insult! I repel it again!" "Ah! you propose to deny the act now, do you?" "No! I killed your brother--or somebody else. I do not know the name of the man I killed--or allowed to be killed! But what do you know of the reasons that impelled me to that murder? How do you know that I was not wreaking a just vengeance? How do you know that that woman--whose name you do not know--was not my sister, and that while avenging the honor of my family, I did not take back the gold and jewels stolen by a seducer?" "Hold your peace, monsieur! do not insult my brother's memory." "You have yourself admitted that he was not rich; where did he obtain a thousand pistoles with which to elope with a woman?" Bois-Doré was shaken. His brother, because of the difference in their political opinions, would never consent to accept from him the smallest portion of a fortune which he rightly considered as derived from the despoiling of his own party. He was obliged to fall back on the allegation that his brother's wife was entitled to carry off what belonged to her. But D'Alvimar retorted that the family was entitled to consider that it belonged to it. Therefore he vehemently denied the charge of robbery. "You are a traitor none the less," said the marquis, "for having stabbed a gentleman like a coward instead of demanding satisfaction from him."