"I am not excited," rejoined Bois-Doré, raising his voice and with an air of dignity that Guillaume had never seen him assume, "and I anticipated your reply, my good friend and cousin. It is such a reply as I should make in your place, and I find no fault with it. Having expected that you would act as you have done, I determined to make my conduct conform to the consideration which I owe you, and that is why you see me here, halfway between our respective abodes, on neutral, public ground. To be sure I have some rights over this road; but three steps away, among yonder old rocks, I am neither on your property nor mine. Know therefore that I have determined to fight a duel to the death with this traitor, who cannot refuse to fight with me, since I have designedly assaulted and insulted him in the person of his servant, and since I do at this moment insult and challenge him in his own person, branding him before God, before you and before the honest fellows who attend us, as a cowardly and despicable murderer! I do not think that you can justly take it ill of me that I do what I am doing; for I beg you to observe that, so long as you and he were in my house, I refrained from anything approaching insult or bad temper, wherein I kept my promise to be a loyal host to him; and I beg you to observe also that I took my measures to meet you in the open fields, in order to avoid doing violence under your roof, for I would not for anything in the world have imposed upon you the necessity of bearing aid to this vile creature. Lastly, my cousin, I beg you to consider this, which is the greatest sacrifice I can make to you: instead of having him beaten to death by my servants, as he deserves, I myself, a nobleman, deserving of my rank, stoop to measure swords with a cutthroat of the vilest sort. Were it not for the friendship with which you honor me, I would have thrown him into an underground dungeon; but, desirous to show my respect for you, even in the error into which you have fallen with regard to him, I renounce all my honorable privileges, to fight him, a vile, degraded creature, with the weapons of men of honor.--I have said what I have to say, and you can make no further objection. Be his second, unworthy as he is of your kindness; Adamas will be mine. I will content myself with the aid of that honest man, since in such an affair there can be no question of a combat between the seconds." "Assuredly," cried Guillaume, deeply moved by the old man's greatness of heart, "conduct more loyal than yours cannot be imagined, my cousin, and, in view of the suspicions you entertain, you display such generosity as is rarely seen. But those suspicions being unfounded----" "It is no longer a question of suspicions," replied the marquis, "since you do not choose to listen to them; I insult one of your friends, and I fancy that you would not consider as a friend a man capable of shrinking from a combat."