The duke, painfully supported on his hand, drew nearer still to Marie; but she rose to her feet and retreated a pace as he advanced.  And he said: 

“But you love me, Marie?  You would have—­”

She interrupted him.

“Above all men I loathe you!” she said, looking on him with shrinking and horror in her face.

His wound was heavy on him—­he was shot in the stomach and was bleeding inwardly—­and had drawn his features; his pain brought a sweat on his brow, and his arm, trembling, scarce held him.  Yet none of these things made the anguish in his eyes as he looked at her.

“This is the man I love,” said she in calm relentlessness.

And she put out her hand and took mine, and drew me to her, passing her arm through mine.  The Duke of Saint-Maclou looked up at us; then he dropped his head, heavily and with a thud on the sand, and so lay till we thought he was dead.

Yet it might be that his life could be saved, and I said to Marie: 

“Stay by him, while I run for help.”

“I will not stay by him,” she said.

“Then do you go,” said I.  “Stop the first people you meet; or, if you see none, go to the inn.  And bid them bring help to carry a wounded man and procure a doctor.”

She nodded her head, and, without a glance at him, started running along the sands toward the road.  And I, left alone with him, sat down and raised him, as well as I could, turning his face upward again and resting it on my thigh.  And I wiped his brow.  And, after a time, he opened his eyes.

“Help will be here soon,” I said.  “She has gone to bring help.”

Full ten minutes passed slowly; he lay breathing with difficulty, and from time to time I wiped his brow.  At last he spoke.

“There’s some brandy in my pocket.  Give it me,” he said.

I found the flask and gave him some of its contents, which kept the life in him for a little longer.  And I was glad to feel that he settled himself, as though more comfortably, against me.

“What happened?” he asked very faintly.

And I told him what had happened, as I conceived it—­how that Bontet must have given shelter to Pierre, till such time as escape might be possible; but how that, when Bontet discovered that the necklace was in the inn, the two scoundrels, thinking that they might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, had determined to make another attempt to secure the coveted spoil; how, in pursuance of this scheme, Bontet had, as I believed, suppressed the duke’s message to his friends at Pontorson, with the intent to attack us, as they had done, on the sands; and I added that he himself knew, better than I, what was likely to have become of the necklace in the hands of Mme. Delhasse.

“For my part,” I concluded, “I doubt if Madame will be at the inn to welcome us on our return.”

“She came to me and told me that Marie would give all I asked, and I gave her the necklace to give to Marie; and believing what she told me, I was anxious not to fight you, for I thought you had nothing to gain by fighting.  Yet you angered me, so I resolved to fight.”