‘You?’ exclaimed the Chevalier. ‘Yes, Beauvoisin, I! I saw it all, and I repeat--it was not a duel, but an assassination.’ ‘Monsieur, take care!’ ‘Do you take care, Beauvoisin!’ screamed the little man fiercely. ‘I refuse to be a party to a cheat, either with pistols or cards.’ More high words ensued, and the two combatants seemed likely to fly at each other’s throats, when Gavrolles, who saw Sutherland still ready to fire upon him if he attempted to leave the ground, seized his second angrily by the arm. ‘It is enough--I will fight the scoundrel. If he falls he will have himself to blame.’ So at last it was arranged. Gavrolles’ pistol was reloaded, while Sutherland still retained the weapon undischarged by Forster. The ground was measured; the men took their places, and the seconds stood aside, ready to give the signal. It was arranged this time that ‘three’ only should be counted, and the moment the last number was given the men were to fire. Sutherland stood cold and collected; Gavrolles, this time, shook violently, and seemed to lose his self-possession. ‘Stop!’ he cried, just as the second prepared to count. ‘No! It is infamous! I will not fight again.’ And he threw down his pistol. ‘A coward,’ said Sutherland; ‘I thought so!’ But the fire-eating Chevalier now walked over, lifted the weapon, and handed it back to his principal. ‘On the contrary, you _must_ fight now,’ he said grimly. ‘If not, I shall proclaim you to be what the Englishman calls you, a coward.’ With one fierce glare into his friend’s face, Gavrolles snatched the pistol, uttered an execration, and again took his stand facing Sutherland. The Chevalier walked back to his place. ‘One--two--three!’ Before the last number was uttered, Gavrolles had raised his pistol; but Sutherland, who had watched him keenly, was as quick as he. The weapons were discharged simultaneously, and one sharp report rang out in the air. Sutherland stood unscathed, though the bullet had almost grazed his brow. Gavrolles, with a stifled scream, threw up his arms, and fell forward on his face--shot through the heart. CHAPTER XLIV.--‘JANE PEARTREE.’ The stream of my narrative, instead of lingering round that group of excited duellists on the French coast, turns again back to England, and to that place of refuge which the wandering woman, ‘Jane Peartree,’ found in the extremity of her distress. After her first night under the roof of Mount Eden, and after her first wild impulse to rise and fly on and on, she subsided into a kind of restless slumber, accompanied with violent shivering and nausea, and before twenty-four hours had passed violent fever had set in. Over the details of this illness, which lasted many weeks, I have no intention to linger. We pass on to the period when the invalid, sufficiently convalescent to sit up in the smaller chamber to which she had been conveyed, began thoroughly to realise the fiery ordeal through which her life had passed.