“Well, then, we’ll go have a glass.  But if Vigo doesn’t come soon, by my faith, I’ll walk to St. Denis!”

But that promised glass was never drunk, nor were we to set out at once for St. Denis; for in the door of the wine-shop we met Lucas.

I had dismissed him from thought, as something out of the reckoning, dead and done with, powerless as yesterday’s broken sword.  I thought him gone out of our lives when he went out of prison—­gone forever, like last year’s snow.  And here within the hour we encountered him, a naked sword in his hand, a smile on his lips.  He said, in the flower of his easy insolence: 

“Tuesday I told you our hour would come.  It is here.”

“At your service,” quoth my lord.

“Then it needs not to slap your face?”

“You insult me safely, Lucas.  You have but one life.  That is forfeit, be you courteous.”

“You think so?”

“I know it.”

Lucas held out the bare sword, hilt toward us.

“Monsieur had a box for weapon yesterday, but as I prefer to fight in the established way, I ventured to provide him with a sword.”

“Thoughtful of you, Lucas.  Is this the make of sword you elect to be killed with?”

He was bending the blade to try its temper.  Lucas unsheathed his own.

“M. de Mar may have his choice.”

M. de Mar professed himself satisfied with the blade given him.

“Have you summoned your seconds, Lucas?”

Lucas raised his eyebrows.

“Is that necessary?  I thought we might settle our affairs without delay.  I confess myself impatient.”

“Your sentiments for once are mine.”

“It is understood you bring your spaniel with you.  He will watch that I do not spring on you before you are ready,” Lucas said, with a fine sneer.

“And who is to watch me?”

“Oh, monsieur’s chivalry is notorious.  Precautions are unnecessary.  It is your privilege, monsieur, to appoint the happy spot.”

“The spot is near at hand.  Where you slew Pontou is the fitting place for you to die.”

“It is fitting for you to die in your own house,” Lucas amended.

Without further parley we turned into the Rue des Innocents, on our way to that of the Coupejarrets.

Now, I had been on the watch from the first instant for foul play.  I had suspected something wrong with the sword, but my lord, who knew, had accepted it.  Then, when Lucas proposed no seconds, I had felt sure of a trap.  But his inviting my presence at the place of our choice smelt like honesty.

M. Etienne remarked casually to me: 

“Faith, there’ll soon be as many ghosts in the house as you thought you saw there—­Grammont, Pontou, and now Lucas.  What ails you, lad?  Footsteps on your grave?”

But it was not thoughts of my grave caused the shudder, but of his.  For of the three men of the lightning-flash, the third was not Lucas, but M. Etienne.  What if the vision were, after all, the thing I had at first believed it—­a portent?  An appearance not of those who had died by steel, but of those who must.  One, two, and now the third.