"I have played no part. It might have fared better with me if I had. What deceit I have practised may be set down to love's account. 'Twas my fear of losing you that locked my lips. Had I not loved you, what need to tell you my secret? 'Twas no crime that I committed. But since I loved you, I was bound in very truth to speak. I have known that from the first, and I pledged myself to speak at the moment that I told you of my love. I dared not disclose the matter before. There was so little chance that I should win your favour, even had every circumstance seconded my suit. But this very night I should have told you the truth." "No doubt! no doubt!" she answered, with the bitterest irony, and I understood what a fatal mistake I had made in pleading my passion before disclosing the story of the duel. I should have begun from the other end. "And no doubt you meant also to tell me, with the same open frankness, of the woman for whose sake you killed my--my husband?" "I fought for no woman, but for my friend." She laughed; surely the hardest, most biting laugh that ever man heard. "Tell me your fine story now." I sank down on the settle, feeling strangely helpless in the face of her contempt. "This is the priest's doing," I repeated, more to myself than to her. "It is my doing," she said again; "my doing from first to last" "Then what was it?" I asked, with a dull, involuntary curiosity. "What was it you had neither the weakness to yield to nor the strength to resist?" She did not answer me, but it seemed as though she suddenly put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall. "Tell me your story," she said briefly; and sitting there in the darkness, unable to see my mistress, I began the history of that November night. "It is true that I killed Count Lukstein; but I killed him in open encounter. I fought him fairly and honourably." "At midnight!" she interrupted. "Without witnesses, upon his wedding-day." "There was blood upon Count Lukstein's sword," I went on doggedly, "and that blood was mine. I fought him fairly and honourably. I own I compelled him to fight me." "You and your--companion." She stressed the word with an extraordinary contempt. "My companion!" I repeated in surprise. "What know you of my companion? My companion watched our horses in the valley." "You dare to tell me that?" she cried, ceasing from her contempt, and suddenly lifting her voice in an inexplicable passion. "It is the truth." "The truth! The truth!" she exclaimed, and then, with a stamp of her foot, and in a ringing tone of decision, "Otto!" The door was flung open. Otto Krax and Michael Groder blocked the opening, and behind them stood Father Spaur, holding a lighted torch above his head. The Tyrolese servants carried hangers in their hands. I can see their blades flashing in the red light now!