“I was ordered to Paris by the General. I was near you at the barricade, and I heard the bullet hit you. Where is it?” The Vicomte looked down at his hand, which was pressed to his breast; the light of the gas flickered, and gleamed on his spectacles as he did so. “In my chest,” he replied. “I am simply dripping with blood. It has trickled down my legs into my boots. Very hot at first--and then very cold.” The other looked at him curiously, and across his velvety eyes there passed that strange contraction which has been noted in the glance of the Vicomte d'Audierne. “I have sent for a mattress,” he said. “That bullet must come out. A doctor is following me; he will be here on the instant.” “One of your Jesuits?” “Yes--one of my Jesuits.” The Vicomte d'Audierne smiled and winced. He staggered a little, and clutched at the back of a chair. The other watched him without emotion. “Why do you not sit down?” he suggested coldly. “There are none of your--_People_--here to be impressed.” Again the Vicomte smiled. “Yes,” he said smoothly, “we work on different lines, do we not? I wonder which of us has dirtied his hands the most. Which of the two--the two fools who quarrelled about a woman. Ha? And she married a third--a dolt. Thus are they made--these women!” “And yet,” said the Jesuit, “you have not forgotten.” The Vicomte looked up slowly. It seemed that his eyelids were heavy, requiring an effort to lift them. “I do not like to hear the rooks call--that is all,” he said. The other turned away his soft, slow glance, the glance that had failed to overcome Christian Vellacott's quiet defiance-- “Nor I,” he said. “It makes one remember.” There was a short silence, and then the Jesuit spoke--sharply and suddenly. “Sit down, you fool!” he said. “You are fainting.” The Vicomte obeyed, and at the same moment the door opened and the tobacconist appeared, pushing before him a mattress. The Jesuit laid aside his hat, revealing the tonsure gleaming whitely amidst his jetty hair, and helped to lay the mattress upon the table. Then the two men, the Provincial and the tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe, lifted the wounded aristocrat gently and placed him upon the improvised bed. True to his blood, the Vicomte d'Audierne uttered no sound of agony, but as his brother began to unbutton the butcher's blouse in which he was disguised he fainted quietly. Presently the doctor arrived. He was quite a young man, with shifting grey eyes, and he saluted the Provincial with a nervous obsequity which was unpleasant to look upon. The deftness with which he completed the task of laying bare the wound was notable. His fingers were too clever to be quite honest. When, however, he was face to face with the little blue-rimmed orifice that disfigured the Vicomte's muscular chest, the expression of his face--indeed his whole manner--changed. His eyes lost their shiftiness--he seemed to forget the presence of the great man standing at the other side of the table.