From my dying master she lifted up her face pale with horror and shining with tears. “And you too,” she said, “believe that it’s easy to be a pretty girl without causing mischief?” “Alas!” I replied, “what you say is but too true. But we have lost the best of men.” At this moment Abbé Coignard sighed deeply, opened his eyes, called for his book of Boethius, and fainted again into unconsciousness. The postboy thought it would be best to carry the wounded man to the village of Vallars, which was only half-a-league distant. “I’ll go,” he said, “to fetch the steadiest of the horses which remain. We’ll tie the poor fellow securely on it, and lead it slowly ahead. I think him very ill. He looks exactly like the courier who was murdered at Saint Michel on the same road, at four stages from here, near Senecy, where my sweetheart lives. That poor devil moved his eyelids and turned up the whites of his eyes like a bad woman, saving your presence, gentlemen. And your abbé did the same when mam’selle tickled his nose with her bottle. It’s a bad sign with a wounded man; girls don’t die of it when they turn their eyes up in that fashion. Your lordships know it well. And there is some distance, thank God! between the little death and the great. But it’s the same turning up of the eyes... Remain, gentlemen, I’ll go and fetch the horse.” “This rustic is amusing,” said M. d’Anquetil, “with his turned-up eyes and his bad women. I’ve seen in Italy soldiers who died on the battlefield with a fixed look and eyes starting out of their head. There are no rules for dying of a wound, actually not even in the military service, where exactitude is pushed to the extreme. But will you, Tournebroche, in default of a better qualified person, present me to yonder gentleman in black, who wears diamond studs, and whom I reckon to be M. d’Asterac?” “Ah! sir,” I replied, “consider the presentation to be made. I have no other feelings but to assist my dear tutor.” “Be it so!” said M. d’Anquetil. And approaching M. d’Asterac: “Sir, I have taken your mistress away: I’m ready to answer for my deed.” “Sir,” replied M. d’Asterac. “Grace be to heaven! I have no connection with any woman, and do not understand what you mean.”