At Gaston"s laugh Eglinton turned to look in his direction, and his eyes met those of de Mortemar fixed intently upon him.
"Surely it is M. le Controleur-General," said the latter, jumping to his feet.
He had paid no heed to his guest"s curious outburst of merriment, putting it down as another expression of his strange humour, else to the potency of Jean Marie"s wine; but he had been deeply interested in the elegant figure of the stranger, that perfect type of a high-born gentleman which the young man was quick enough to recognise. The face, the quaintly awkward manner, brought back certain recollections of two days spent at the Court of Versailles.
Now when Eglinton turned toward him, he at once recognised the handsome face, and those kind eyes, which always looked grave and perfectly straight at an interlocutor.
"Milor Eglinton, a thousand pardons," he now said as he moved quickly across the room. "I had failed to recognise you at first, and had little thought of seeing so great a personage in this sleepy old town."
Eglinton too had risen at his first words and had stepped forward, with his habitual courtesy, to greet the young man. De Mortemar"s hand was cordially stretched out toward him, the next moment he would have clasped that of the young Englishman, when with one bound and a rush across the room and with one wild shout of rage, Gaston de Stainville overtook his friend and, catching hold of his arm, he drew him roughly back.
"Nay! de Mortemar, my friend," he cried loudly, "be warned in time lest your honest hand come in contact with that of a coward."
His words echoed along the vast, empty room. Then there was dead silence. Instinctively Mortemar had stepped back as if he had been stung. He did not of course understand the meaning of it all, and was so taken aback that he could no nothing but stare amazed at the figure of the young man before him. Eglinton"s placidity had in no sense given way before the deadly insult; only his face had become pale as death, but the eyes still looked grave, earnest and straight at his enemy.
"Aye! a coward," said Gaston, who during these few moments of silence had fought the trembling of his limbs, the quiver of his voice. He saw the calm of the other man and with a mighty effort smothered the cryings of his rage, leaving cool contempt free play. "Or will you deny here, before my friend le Comte de Mortemar, who was about to touch your hand, that last night having insulted me you refused to give me satisfaction? Coward! you have no right to touch another"s hand . . . the hand of an honourable gentleman. . . . Coward! . . . Do you hear me? I"ll say it again--coward--and coward again ere I shout it on the house-tops of Versailles--coward!--even now when my hand has struck your cheek--coward!"
How it all happened Mortemar himself could not afterward have said, the movement must have been extraordinarily quick, for even as the last word "Coward!" rose to Gaston"s lips it was drowned in an involuntary cry of agony, whilst his hand, raised ready to strike, was held in a grip which indeed seemed like one of steel.
""Tis done, man! "tis done!" said the gentle, perfectly even voice, "but in the name of Heaven provoke me no further, or it will be murder instead of fight. There!" he added, releasing the other man"s wrist, who staggered back faint and giddy with the pain, ""tis true that I refused to meet you in combat yester e"en; the life of my friend, lonely and betrayed, out there in far-off Scotland, had been the price of delay if I did not ride out of Versailles before c.o.c.k-crow, but now "tis another matter," he added lightly, "and I am at your service."
"Aye!" sneered Gaston, still writhing with pain, "at my service now, when you hope that my broken wrist will ensure your impunity."
"Nay, sir, but at your service across the width of this table,"
responded Eglinton coldly, "a pair of pistols, one unloaded. . . . And we"ll both use the left hand."
An exclamation of protest broke from Mortemar"s lips.
"Impossible! . . ."
"Why so, Monsieur le Comte?"
""Twere murder, milor!"
"Does M. le Comte de Stainville protest?" queried the other calmly.
"No! d.a.m.n you! . . . Where are the pistols?"
"Yours, M. le Comte, an you will; surely you have not ridden all the way from Versailles without a pair in your holster."
"Well guessed, milor," quoth Gaston lightly. "Mortemar, I pray you, in the pocket of my coat . . . a pair of pistols."
Mortemar tried again to protest.
"Silence!" said Gaston savagely, "do you not see that I must kill him?"
""Tis obvious as the crescent moon yonder, M. de Mortemar," said Eglinton with a whimsical smile. "I entreat you, the pistols."
The young man obeyed in silence. He strode across the room to the place lately vacated by Gaston, and near which his cloak was lying close to his hat and whip. Mortemar groped in the pockets: he found the two pistols and then rejoined the antagonists.
"I used one against a couple of footpads in the early dawn," said Gaston, as he took the weapons from Mortemar"s hands and placed them on the table.
""Twas lucky, Monsieur le Comte," rejoined Eglinton gravely, "then all we need do is to throw for the choice."
"Dice," said Stainville curtly.
On a table close by there was a dice-box, left there by one of Jean Marie"s customers: Mortemar, without a word, handed it to Eglinton. He could not understand the placidity of the man: Gaston"s att.i.tude was simple enough, primitive animal rage, blinding him to the possibility of immediate death; excitement too, giving him a sense of bravado, an arrogant disregard of the consequences of his own provocation.
Eglinton was within his rights. He was now the insulted party, he could make his own conditions, but did he wish to die? or was he so supremely indifferent to life that he could view with perfect serenity that pair of pistols, one of which death-dealing of a surety across a narrow table, and that box of dice the arbiter of his fate?
Of a truth Eglinton was perfectly indifferent as to the issue of the combat. He did not care if he killed Gaston, nor did he care to live.
Lydie hated him, so what mattered if the sky was blue, or if the sun ceased to shed radiance over the earth?
It was the supreme indifference of a man who with life had nothing else to lose.
His hand was absolutely steady as he took the dice-box and threw:
"Blank!" murmured Mortemar under his breath, as he saw the result of the throw. Yet the face of milor was as impa.s.sive as before, even though now by all the rules of chance Gaston"s was the winning hand.
"Three!" he said calmly, as the dice once more rolled on to the table.
"Monsieur le Comte, the choice of weapon rests with you."
Once more Mortemar tried to interpose. This was monstrous! horrible! a shocking, brutal murder!
"Monsieur de Stainville knows his own weapons," he said impulsively, "he discharged one this morning and . . ."
"Milor should have thought of this before!" retorted Stainville savagely.
"The remark did not come from me, Monsieur," rejoined Eglinton pa.s.sively, "an you will choose your weapon, I am fully satisfied."
But his grave eyes found occasion to send a kindly glance of grat.i.tude to young de Mortemar. The latter felt a tightening of his very heart strings: he would at this moment have willingly given his fortune to avert the awful catastrophe.
"Mortemar, an you interfere," said Gaston, divining his thoughts, "I"ll brand you as a meddler before the Court of Versailles. An you are afraid to see bloodshed, get you gone in the name of h.e.l.l."
By all the unwritten laws which governed such affairs of honour, Mortemar could not interfere. He did not know the right or wrong of the original enmity between these two men, but had already guessed that mere disappointment with regard to the voyage of _Le Monarque_ had not been sufficient to kindle such deadly hate: vaguely he surmised that somewhere in the background lurked the rustle of a silk petticoat.
Without the slightest hesitation now Gaston took one of the pistols in his left hand: his right still caused him excruciating pain; and every time he felt the agony, his eyes gleamed with more intense savagery, the l.u.s.t of a certain revenge.
He had worked himself up into a pa.s.sion of hate. Money has the power to do that sometimes; that vanished hope of fortune had killed every instinct in the man, save that of desire for vengeance. He was sure of himself. The pistols were his as de Mortemar had said, and he had handled them but a few hours ago: he could apprise their weight--loaded or unloaded--and he was quite satisfied.
It was hatred alone that prompted him to a final thrust, a blow, he thought, to a dying man. Eglinton was as good as dead, with the muzzle of a loaded pistol a foot away from his breast, and an empty weapon in his own hand; but his serenity irritated Gaston; the blood which tingled in his own veins, which had rushed to his head almost obscuring his vision clamoured for a sight of a shrinking enemy, not of a wooden puppet, calm, impa.s.sive even before certain death.
The agony as he lifted the half-broken wrist to his coat was intolerable, but he almost welcomed it now, for it added a strange, l.u.s.tful joy to the excitement of this deed. His eyes, glowing and restless with fumes of wine and pa.s.sion of hate, were fixed upon the marble-like face of his enemy. Then from the breast-pocket of his coat, he drew a packet of papers.
And although he was nigh giddy with the pain in his wrist, he clutched that packet tightly, toyed with it for a while, smoothed out the creases with a hand which shook with the intensity of his excitement, the intensity of his triumph.
The proofs in Madame la Marquise d"Eglinton"s own writing that she was at one with the gang who meant to sell the Stuart prince for gold! The map revealing his hiding-place! and her letter to him bidding him trust the bearer whose orders--now affixed to map and letter--were that he deliver the young Pretender into the hands of the English authorities.