“Sir,” said the prince, severely, “your misdeeds transcend all limits, and your behaviour is such that I shall be forced to implore the king to send you to prison, or into exile.  You are not fit to be at large.  Abduction—­imprisonment—­criminal assault.  These are not simple gallantries; and though I might be willing to pardon and overlook many excesses, committed in the wildness of licentious youth, I never could bring myself to forgive a deliberate and premeditated crime.  Do you know, you monster,” he continued approaching Vallombreuse, and whispering in his ear, so that no one else could hear, “do you know who this young girl is? this good and chaste Isabelle, whom you have forcibly abducted, in spite of her determined and virtuous resistance!  She is your own sister!

“May she replace the son you are about to lose,” the young duke replied, attacked by a sudden faintness, and an agony of pain which he felt that he could not long endure and live; “but I am not as guilty as you suppose.  Isabelle is pure—­stainless.  I swear it, by the God before whom I must shortly appear.  Death does not lie, and you may believe what I say, upon the word of a dying gentleman.”

These words were uttered loudly and distinctly, so as to be heard by all.  Isabelle turned her beautiful eyes, wet with tears, upon de Sigognac, and read in those of her true and faithful lover that he had not waited for the solemn attestation, “in extremis,” of the Duke of Vallombreuse to believe in the perfect purity of her whom he adored.

“But what is the matter?” asked the prince, holding out his hand to his son, who staggered and swayed to and fro in spite of Malartic’s efforts to support him, and whose face was fairly livid.

“Nothing, father,” answered Vallombreuse, in a scarcely articulate voice, “nothing—­only I am dying”—­and he fell at full length on the floor before the prince could clasp him in his arms, as he endeavoured to do.

“He did not fall on his face,” said Jacquemin Lampourde, sententiously; “it’s nothing but a fainting fit.  He may escape yet.  We duellists are familiar with this sort of thing, my lord; a great deal more so than most medical men, and you may depend upon what I say.”

“A doctor! a doctor!” cried the prince, forgetting his anger as he saw his son lying apparently lifeless at his feet.  “Perhaps this man is right, and there may be some hope for him yet.  A fortune to whomsoever will save my son!—­my only son!—­the last scion of a noble race.  Go! run quickly!  What are you about there?—­don’t you understand me?  Go, I say, and run as fast as you can; take the fleetest horse in the stable.”