“God knows what lies you told her, you see.”

His white face suddenly flushed; but he held himself in and retorted with a sneer: 

“A disabled right arm gives a man fine courage.”

“Nonsense!” said I.  “I can aim as well with my left;” and that indeed was not very far from the truth.  And I went on:  “Is she here?”

“Mme. and Mlle. Delhasse are both here, under my escort.”

“I should like to see Mlle. Delhasse,” I observed.

He answered me in low tones, but with the passion in him closer to the surface now and near on boiling up through the thin film of his self-restraint: 

“So long as I live, you shall never see her.”

But I cared not, for my heart leaped in joy at his words.  They meant to me that he dared not let me see her; that, be the meaning of her consent to go with him what it might, yet he dared not match his power over her against mine.  And whence came the power he feared?  It could be mine only if I had touched her heart.

“I presume she may see whom she will,” said I still carelessly.

“Her mother will protect her from you with my help.”

There was silence for a minute.  Then I said: 

“I will not leave here without seeing her.”

And a pause followed my words till the duke, fixing his eyes on mine, answered significantly: 

“If you leave here alive to-night, you are welcome to take her with you.”

I understood, and I nodded my head.

“My left arm is as sound as yours,” he added; “and, maybe, better practiced.”

Our eyes met again, and the agreement was sealed.  The duke was about to speak again, when a sudden thought struck me.  I put my hand in my pocket and drew out the Cardinal’s Necklace.  And I flung it on the table before me, saying: 

“Let me return that to you, sir.”

The duke stood regarding the necklace for a moment, as it lay gleaming and glittering on the wooden table in the bare inn parlor.  Then he stepped up to the table, but at the moment I cried: 

“You won’t steal her away before—­before—­”

“Before we fight?  I will not, on my honor.”  He paused and added:  “For there is one thing I want more even than her.”

I could guess what that was.

And then he put out his hand, took up the necklace, and thrust it carelessly into the pocket of his coat.  And looking across the room, I saw the inn-keeper, Jacques Bontet, standing in the doorway and staring with all his eyes at the spot on the table where the glittering thing had for a moment lain; and as the fellow set down the wine he had brought for the duke, I swear that he trembled as a man who has seen a ghost; for he spilled some of the wine and chinked the bottle against the glass.  But while I stared at him, the duke lifted his glass and bowed to me, saying, with a smile and as though he jested in some phrase of extravagant friendship for me: