“That’s what you deserve,” said he.

And Lafleur, groveling, caught him by the knees.

“Don’t kill me!  Don’t kill me!” he implored.

“Why not?” asked the duke, in the tone of a man willing to hear the other side, but certain that he would not be convinced by it.  “Why not?  We find you stealing—­and we shoot you as you try to escape.  I see nothing unnatural or illegal in it, Lafleur.  Nor do I see anything in favor of leaving you alive.”

And the pistol pressed still on Lafleur’s forehead.  Whether his master meant to shoot, I know not—­although I believe he did.  But Lafleur had little doubt of his purpose; for he hastened to play his best card, and, clinging still to the duke’s knees, cried desperately: 

“If you’ll spare me, I’ll tell you where she is!”

The duke’s arm fell to his side; and in a changed voice, from which the cruel bantering had fled, while eager excitement filled its place, he cried: 

“What?  Where who is?”

“The lady—­Mlle. Delhasse.  A girl I know—­there in Avranches—­saw her go.  She is there now.”

“Where, man, where?” roared the duke, stamping his foot, and menacing the wretch again with his pistol.

I turned to listen, forgetful of quiet little Pierre and his alert beady eyes; yet I kept the pistol on him.

And Lafleur cried: 

“At the convent—­at the convent, on the shores of the bay!”

“My God!” cried the duke, and his eyes suddenly turned and flashed on mine; and I saw that the necklace was forgotten, that our partnership was ended, and that I again, and no longer the cowering creature before him, was the enemy.  And I also, hearing that Marie Delhasse was at the convent, was telling myself that I was a fool not to have thought of it before, and wondering what new impulse had seized the duke’s wayward mind.

Thus neither the duke nor I was attending to the business of the moment.  But there was a man of busy brain, whose life taught him to profit by the slips of other men and to let pass no opportunities.  Our carelessness gave one now—­a chance of escape, and a chance of something else too.  For, while my negligent hand dropped to my side and my eyes were seeking to read the duke’s face, the figure opposite me must have been moving.  Softly must a deft hand have crept to a pocket; softly came forth the hidden weapon.  There was a report loud and sudden; and then another.  And with the first, Lafleur, who was kneeling at the duke’s feet and looking up to see how his shaft had sped, flung his arms wildly over his head, gave a shriek, and fell dead—­his head, half-shattered, striking the iron box as he fell sideways in a heap on the ground.

The duke sprang back with an oath, whose sound was engulfed in the second discharge of Pierre’s pistol:  and I felt myself struck in the right arm; and my weapon fell to the ground, while I clutched the wounded limb with my left hand.