Duroc advanced in silence, and stood by the ruffian’s side.

‘Jean Carabin,’ said he.

The Baron started, and the film of drunkenness seemed to be clearing from his eyes.

‘Jean Carabin,’ said Duroc, once more.

He sat up and grasped the arms of his chair.

‘What do you mean by repeating that name, young man?’ he asked.

‘Jean Carabin, you are a man whom I have long wished to meet.’

’Supposing that I once had such a name, how can it concern you, since you must have been a child when I bore it?’

‘My name is Duroc.’

‘Not the son of——?’

‘The son of the man you murdered.’

The Baron tried to laugh, but there was terror in his eyes.

‘We must let bygones be bygones, young man,’ he cried.  ’It was our life or theirs in those days:  the aristocrats or the people.  Your father was of the Gironde.  He fell.  I was of the mountain.  Most of my comrades fell.  It was all the fortune of war.  We must forget all this and learn to know each other better, you and I.’  He held out a red, twitching hand as he spoke.

‘Enough,’ said young Duroc.  ’If I were to pass my sabre through you as you sit in that chair, I should do what is just and right.  I dishonour my blade by crossing it with yours.  And yet you are a Frenchman, and have even held a commission under the same flag as myself.  Rise, then, and defend yourself!’

‘Tut, tut!’ cried the Baron.  ’It is all very well for you young bloods—­’

Duroc’s patience could stand no more.  He swung his open hand into the centre of the great orange beard.  I saw a lip fringed with blood, and two glaring blue eyes above it.

‘You shall die for that blow.’

‘That is better,’ said Duroc.

‘My sabre!’ cried the other.  ’I will not keep you waiting, I promise you!’ and he hurried from the room.

I have said that there was a second door covered with a curtain.  Hardly had the Baron vanished when there ran from behind it a woman, young and beautiful.  So swiftly and noiselessly did she move that she was between us in an instant, and it was only the shaking curtains which told us whence she had come.

‘I have seen it all,’ she cried.  ’Oh, sir, you have carried yourself splendidly.’  She stooped to my companion’s hand, and kissed it again and again ere he could disengage it from her grasp.

‘Nay, madame, why should you kiss my hand?’ he cried.

’Because it is the hand which struck him on his vile, lying mouth.  Because it may be the hand which will avenge my mother.  I am his step-daughter.  The woman whose heart he broke was my mother.  I loathe him, I fear him.  Ah, there is his step!’ In an instant she had vanished as suddenly as she had come.  A moment later, the Baron entered with a drawn sword in his hand, and the fellow who had admitted us at his heels.

‘This is my secretary,’ said he.  ’He will be my friend in this affair.  But we shall need more elbow-room than we can find here.  Perhaps you will kindly come with me to a more spacious apartment.’