“You must not come any further, Miss Carew,” said Gervase, advancing to meet her, with a white face. “I am sure something has happened.” He took the light from her and entered the room, Swartz who had picked himself up muttering a malediction, following close on his heels. Lying in the middle of the room in a dark pool of blood was De Laprade, while Jasper Carew stood over the body, with the point of his rapier on the ground and his hands resting on the handle. “I killed him in fair fight,” he said as Gervase came into the room, and running over, knelt down by the fallen man. Gervase opened the Vicomte´s coat and placed his hand on his heart; it was still beating feebly. “He is not dead yet. For God´s sake run for the surgeon; he may yet be saved,” he cried, turning to Swartz who stood behind him. “I´ll not stir a step to save his life,” the old man answered doggedly. “Do as you are bidden, sir,” said Jasper, without moving, “and make what haste you can.” Then he went over and sat down by the table, looking on coldly as the man went out and Gervase tried to stop the bleeding with his handkerchief. Dorothy had crept into the room, pale and frightened, and knelt down beside Gervase. “Is he dead?” she said with a gasp. “No, he still lives. I can hear his heart beating.” “I would give my own life a hundred times over to save his. He must not die; I say, he must not die.” “It is as God wills,” answered Gervase gravely. “I think he is coming round.” The Vicomte opened his eyes and smiled a faint smile of recognition as his eyes fell on Dorothy; she lifted his hand and pressed it within her own; then she shuddered at the touch--it was clammy with blood. No one spoke or stirred--only the feeble tide of life appeared to be slowly returning. The minutes seemed to drag themselves into hours while they waited for the coming of the surgeon. Dorothy had placed her hand under De Laprade´s head, and anxiously watched the deathlike pallor disappearing from his cheeks. Her heart leapt joyfully as she saw him attempting to speak. “´Twas a fair fight but--but,” and he spoke as if communing with himself, “he should not have caught my sword.” Gervase looked suddenly up at Carew where he sat by the table looking on sullenly, and he was filled with horror at the awful likeness that he bore to the old man, his grandfather, whose frowning face he had seen in its death agony. It was the same face, the same dark passionate look, transformed from age to youth. He had never noticed the likeness before and he wondered at it now. Jasper rose and coming over looked down at the Vicomte with a look of bitter hate. “The man is a liar,” he said; “a liar while he lived and a liar now that he is dying, for I hope that I have killed him. I fought him fairly, and I should have stabbed him where he sat. I shall answer the world for what I have done.”