Do not be uneasy, dear Roger; I have reached the frontier without being pursued; the news of the fatal duel had not yet spread abroad.  I thank you, all the same, for the letter which you have written me, and in which you trace the line of conduct I should pursue in case of arrest.  The moment a magistrate interferes, the clearest and least complicated affair assumes an appearance of guilt.  However, it would have been all the same to me if I had been arrested and condemned.  I fled more on your account than on my own.  No human interest can ever again influence me; Raymond’s death has ended my life!

What an inexplicable enigma is the human heart!  When I saw Raymond facing me upon the ground, an uncontrollable rage took possession of me.  The heavenly resignation of his face seemed infamous and finished hypocrisy.  I said to myself:  “He apes the angel, the wretch!” and I regretted that custom interposed a sword between him and my hatred.  It seemed so coldly ceremonious, I would have liked to tear his bosom open with my nails and gnaw his heart out with my teeth.  I knew that I would kill him; I already saw the red lips of his wound outlined upon his breast by the pale finger of death.  When my steel crossed his, I attempted neither thrusts nor parries.  I had forgotten the little fencing I knew.  I fought at random, almost with my eyes shut; but had my adversary been St. George or Grisier, the result would have been the same.

When Raymond fell I experienced a profound astonishment; something within me broke which no hand will ever be able to restore!  A gulf opened before me which can never be filled!  I stood there, gloomily gazing upon the purple stream that flowed from the narrow wound, fascinated in spite of myself by this spectacle of immobility succeeding action, death succeeding life, without shade or transition; this young man, who a moment before was radiant with life and hope, now lay motionless before me, as impossible to resuscitate as Cheops under his pyramid.  I was rooted to the spot, unconsciously repeating to myself Lady Macbeth’s piteous cry:  “Who would have thought the man to have had so much blood in him?”

They led me away; I allowed them to put me into the carriage like a thing without strength or motion.  The excitement of anger was succeeded by an icy calmness; I had neither memory, thought nor plans; I was annihilated; I would have liked to stop, throw myself on the ground and lie there for ever.  I felt no remorse, I had not even the consciousness of my crime; the thought that I was a murderer had not yet had time to fix itself in my mind; I felt no connection whatever with the deed that I had done, and asked myself if it was I, Edgar de Meilhan, who had killed Raymond!  It seemed as if I had been only a looker-on.

As to Irene, the innocent cause of this horrible catastrophe, I scarcely thought of her; she only appeared to me a faint phantom seen in another existence!  My love, my longings, my jealousy had all vanished.  One drop of Raymond’s warm blood had stilled my mad vehemence.  She is dead, poor darling, it is the only happiness that I could wish her; her death lessens my despair.  If she lived, no torture, no penance could be fierce enough to expiate my crime!  No hermit of the desert would lash his quivering flesh more pitilessly than I!