“Come away,” he said.  “The lad is raving.  They were friends.”

“You heard what he said?” quoth the Marquis.

“Nor can he, or you, or any man deny it,” flung back Andre-Louis.  “Yourself, monsieur, you made confession when you gave me now the reason why you killed him.  You did it because you feared him.”

“If that were true — what, then?” asked the great gentleman.

“Do you ask?  Do you understand of life and humanity nothing but how to wear a coat and dress your hair — oh, yes, and to handle weapons against boys and priests?  Have you no mind to think, no soul into which you can turn its vision?  Must you be told that it is a coward’s part to kill the thing he fears, and doubly a coward’s part to kill in this way?  Had you stabbed him in the back with a knife, you would have shown the courage of your vileness.  It would have been a vileness undisguised.  But you feared the consequences of that, powerful as you are; and so you shelter your cowardice under the pretext of a duel.”

The Marquis shook off his cousin’s hand, and took a step forward, holding now his sword like a whip.  But again the Chevalier caught and held him.

“No, no, Gervais!  Let be, in God’s name!”

“Let him come, monsieur,” raved Andre-Louis, his voice thick and concentrated.  “Let him complete his coward’s work on me, and thus make himself safe from a coward’s wages.”

M. de Chabrillane let his cousin go.  He came white to the lips, his eyes glaring at the lad who so recklessly insulted him.  And then he checked.  It may be that he remembered suddenly the relationship in which this young man was popularly believed to stand to the Seigneur de Gavrillac, and the well-known affection in which the Seigneur held him.  And so he may have realized that if he pushed this matter further, he might find himself upon the horns of a dilemma.  He would be confronted with the alternatives of shedding more blood, and so embroiling himself with the Lord of Gavrillac at a time when that gentleman’s friendship was of the first importance to him, or else of withdrawing with such hurt to his dignity as must impair his authority in the countryside hereafter.

Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short; then, with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and contempt, he tossed his arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.

When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-Louis, his arms about the body of his dead friend, murmuring passionately into the deaf ear that rested almost against his lips: 

“Philippe!  Speak to me, Philippe!  Philippe...  Don’t you hear me?  O God of Heaven!  Philippe!”

At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor could avail.  The cheek that lay against Andre-Louis’s was leaden-hued, the half-open eyes were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the vacuously parted lips.