“A duel!” said Beaufort. “’Twas near here that poor Castries was killed.  Perhaps it is another friend in trouble, and I had best see,” and, calling to the coachman to stop the horses, he jumped out.  Almost at the same instant a man stumbled out of the allee and ran down the boulevard.  Beaufort would have followed him, but, as he started to do so, he heard his name called and, looking back, saw another man emerge from the allee and gaze down the almost deserted street.  By the dim light of the lantern swung from its great iron post the man recognized Monsieur de Beaufort and ran forward.

“Will you come?” he said, hurriedly.  “Monsieur Calvert is here—­wounded by that villain.”

“Calvert—­impossible!  He is not in Paris.”

“But he is!—­here,” said Bertrand, drawing Beaufort toward the allee.

Adrienne’s pale face appeared at the coach-door.

“Did I hear someone speak of Monsieur Calvert?”

Beaufort went up to her.  “He is here—­wounded, I think,” he said in a low voice.  “I will go and see—­you will not be afraid to wait?”

“To wait!—­I am going, too,” and before he could prevent it she had stepped from the coach and was making her way toward the allee.  A ghastly sight met their eyes as they entered the lane.  St. Aulaire lay upon the ground, one of his companions standing over him, and at a little distance, Calvert, white and unconscious, the blood trickling from his left shoulder.  With a low cry Adrienne knelt on the ground beside him and felt his pulse to see if he still lived.  In an instant she was up.

“Bring him to the carriage.  We must take him to the Legation—­to Mr. Morris,” she says, in a low tone, to Beaufort and Bertrand, whom she had recognized as the servant Calvert had brought with him to Azay-le-Roi.  Without a look at St. Aulaire she helped the two to get Calvert to the coach, where he was placed on the cushions as easily as possible and held between herself and Madame d’Azay.  She hung over him during the long drive in a sort of passion of pity and love.  It was the dearest happiness she had ever known to touch him, to feel his head upon her arm.  Even though he were dead, she thought, it were worth all her life to have held him so.  She scarcely spoke save to ask Bertrand if he knew the cause of the encounter, and, when he had told her all he knew of the events of the evening, she relapsed again into silence.  They reached the Legation as Mr. Morris’s guests were leaving, and in a very few minutes the young man was put to bed and a surgeon called.

Though the wound was not fatal—­not even very serious—­a sharp fever fastened upon Calvert, and, in the delirium of the few days following, Mr. Morris was easily able to learn the cause of the duel.  The story he thus gathered from Calvert’s wild talk he told Adrienne and Madame d’Azay—­the two ladies came daily to inquire how the patient was doing—­for he thought that they should know