All were arrayed in the most gorgeous splendor--all except one, a girl of charms unrivalled (although she seemed plunged in the deepest agony of grief) by the seductive beauties of the gayest. Her bright, redundant auburn hair was all dishevelled; her long, dark eyelashes were pencilled in distinct relief against the marble pallor of her colorless cheeks; her rich and rounded form was veiled, but not concealed, by a dress of the coarsest serge, black as the robes of night, and thereby contrasting more the exquisite fairness of her complexion. On her all eyes were fixed--some with disgust, some with contempt, others with pity, sympathy, and even admiration. That girl was Marguerite de Vaudreuil--betrothed to either combatant; the betrayed herself, and the betrayer; rejected by the man whose memory, when she believed him dead, she had herself deserted; rejecting, in her turn, and absolutely loathing him whose falsehood had betrayed her into the commission of a yet deeper treason--Marguerite de Vaudreuil, lately the admired of all beholders, now the prize of two kindred swordsmen, without an option save that between the bed of a man she hated and the lifelong seclusion of the convent. The king was seated; the trumpets flourished once again, and at the signal the curtain was withdrawn from the tent-door of the challenger, and Charles de La-Hirè stepped calmly out on the arena, followed by his godfather, De Jarnac, bearing two double-edged swords of great length and weight, and two broad-bladed poniards. Charles de La-Hirè was very pale and sallow, as if from ill health or from long confinement, but his step was firm and elastic, and his air perfectly unmoved and tranquil. A slight flush rose to his pale cheek as he was greeted by an enthusiastic cheer from the people, to whom his fame in the wars of Italy had much endeared him; but the flush was transient, and in a moment he was as pale and cold as before the shout which hailed his entrance. He was clad very plainly in a dark, morone-colored pourpoint, with vest, trunk-hose, and nether socks of black-silk netting, displaying to admiration the outlines of his lithe and sinewy frame. De Jarnac, his godfather, on the contrary, was very foppishly attired with an abundance of fluttering tags, and ruffles of rich lace, and feathers in his velvet cap.