“They will never cease talking about me,” he muttered angrily.  Then he added, firmly, “Come, I must make an end of this.”

He soon reached the Hotel Luxembourg.  He rapped at the door, and was speedily conducted to the best room in the house.  He ordered a fire to be lighted.  He also asked for sugar and water, and writing materials.  At this moment he was as firm as in the morning.

“I must not hesitate,” he muttered, “nor recoil from my fate.”

He sat down at the table near the fireplace, and wrote in a firm hand a declaration which he destined for the police.

“No one must be accused of my death,” he commenced; and he went on by asking that the hotel-keeper should be indemnified.

The hour by the clock was five minutes before eleven; he placed his pistols on the mantel.

“I will shoot myself at midnight,” thought he.  “I have yet an hour to live.”

The count threw himself in an arm-chair and buried his face in his hands.  Why did he not kill himself at once?  Why impose on himself this hour of waiting, of anguish and torture?  He could not have told.  He began again to think over the events of his life, reflecting on the headlong rapidity of the occurrences which had brought him to that wretched room.  How time had passed!  It seemed but yesterday that he first began to borrow.  It does little good, however, to a man who has fallen to the bottom of the abyss, to know the causes why he fell.

The large hand of the clock had passed the half hour after eleven.

He thought of the newspaper item which he had just read.  Who furnished the information?  Doubtless it was Jenny.  She had come to her senses, tearfully hastened after him.  When she failed to find him on the boulevard, she had probably gone to his house, then to his club, then to some of his friends.  So that to-night, at this very moment, the world was discussing him.

“Have you heard the news?”

“Ah, yes, poor Tremorel!  What a romance!  A good fellow, only—­”

He thought he heard this “only” greeted with laughter and innuendoes.  Time passed on.  The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the hour had come.

The count got up, seized his pistols, and placed himself near the bed, so as not to fall on the floor.

The first stroke of twelve; he did not fire.

Hector was a man of courage; his reputation for bravery was high.  He had fought at least ten duels; and his cool bearing on the ground had always been admiringly remarked.  One day he had killed a man, and that night he slept very soundly.

But he did not fire.

There are two kinds of courage.  One, false courage, is that meant for the public eye, which needs the excitement of the struggle, the stimulus of rage, and the applause of lookers-on.  The other, true courage, despises public opinion, obeys conscience, not passion; success does not sway it, it does its work noiselessly.