"_Canaille_!" exclaimed Leoni in a tone of hatred and contempt, "but for me you would be a dead man; you retreated like a coward, and you would have been struck from behind. If I had not seen that you were lost, and if your ruin would not have involved mine, I would never have touched that man at such an hour and in such a place. But your infernal obstinacy compelled me to be your accomplice. All that I needed was to commit a murder, to be worthy of your society." "Don't play the modest man," retorted the marquis; "when you saw that he defended himself, you became a very tiger." "Ah! yes, it rejoiced my heart to have him die defending himself; for after all I killed him fairly." "Very fairly; he had postponed the game till the next day, and as you were in a hurry to be done with it, you killed him on the spot." "Whose fault was it, traitor? Why did you throw yourself on him just as we were separating after we had agreed to meet the next day? Why did you run when you saw that he was armed, and thus compel me to defend you or else be denounced by him to-morrow for having conspired with you to lure him into a trap and murder him? Now I have made myself liable to the scaffold, and yet I am not a murderer. I fought with equal weapons, equal chance, equal courage." "Yes, he defended himself like a man," said the marquis; "you both performed prodigies of valor. It was a very fine spectacle to see, truly Homeric, was that duel with knives. But I am bound to say that for a Venetian you handle that weapon wretchedly." "It is quite true that it isn't the weapon I am in the habit of using, and by the way I am inclined to think it would be wise to conceal or destroy this one." "That would be the height of folly, my friend! You must keep it; your servants and friends know that you always carry such a weapon; if you should dispose of it, that would be an indication of guilt." "True, but yours?" "Mine is innocent of his blood; my first blows missed, and after that yours left me no room." "Ah! heaven! that is true too. You tried to murder him, and fatality compelled me to do with my own hands the deed of which I had such a horror." "It pleases you to say that, my dear fellow; however, you went very willingly to the rendezvous." "I had an instinctive foreboding that my evil genius would force me to do it. After all, it was my destiny and his. We are rid of him at last! But why in the devil did you empty his pockets?" "Precaution and presence of mind on my part. When they find him stripped of his money and his wallet, they will look for the assassin among the lowest classes, and will never suspect people in fashionable society. It will be considered an act of brigandage and not a matter of private revenge. Don't betray yourself by absurd emotion when you hear the affair mentioned to-morrow, and we have nothing to fear. Just reach me the candle so that I can burn these papers; as for honest coin, that never betrayed anybody."