"Our friends have at least as much right as yours," he continued, taunting me. "But they do not interfere," I answered firmly. "Nor shall you. I request you to withdraw." He still refused, and even tried to bluster; but this proved too much for Louis' stomach; he intervened sharply, and at a word from him the bully shrugged his shoulders and moved away. Then we four looked at one another. "We had better proceed," the Captain said bluntly. "If the stroke was irregular, this gentleman was right to interfere. If not----" "I am willing," M. de St. Alais said. And in a moment the two fell on guard, and to it again; but more fiercely now, and with less caution, the Captain more than once using a rough, sweeping parry, in greater favour with practical fighters than in the fencing school. This, though it left him exposed to a _riposte_, seemed to disconcert M. le Marquis, who fenced, I thought, less skilfully than before, and more than once seemed to be flurried by the Captain's attack. I began to feel doubtful of the result, my heart began to beat more quickly, the glitter of the blades as they slid up and down one another confused my sight. I looked for one moment across at Louis--and in that moment the end came. M. le Capitaine used again his sweeping parry, but this time the circle was too wide; St. Alais' blade darted serpent-like under his. The Captain staggered back. His sword dropped from his hand. Before he could fall I caught him in my arms, but blood was gushing already from a wound in the side of his neck. He just turned his eyes to my face, and tried once to speak. I caught the words, "You will----" and then blood choked his voice, and his eyes slowly closed. He was dead, or as good as dead, before the surgeon could reach him, before I could lay him on the grass. I knelt a moment beside him perfectly stunned by the suddenness of the catastrophe; watching in a kind of fascination the surgeon feeling pulse and heart, and striving with his thumb to stop the bleeding. For a moment or two my world was reduced to the sinking grey face, the quivering eyelids before me, and I saw nothing, heeded nothing, thought of nothing else. I could not believe that the valiant spirit had fled already; that the stout man who had so quickly yet insensibly won my liking was in this moment dead; dead and growing livid, while the pigeons still circled overhead, and the sparrows chirped, and the fountain tinkled in the sunshine. I cried out in my agony. "Not dead?" I said. "Not dead so soon?" "Yes, M. le Vicomte, it was bad luck," the surgeon answered, letting the passive head fall on the stained grass. "With such a wound nothing can be done."