He waited awhile, then said exactly what was in his heart: 

“Drop this; I won’t fight you now.  I won’t be made ridiculous.”

“Ah, you won’t!” hissed the Gascon.  “I suppose you prefer to be made infamous.  Do you hear what I say?...  Infamous!  Infamous!  Infamous!” he shrieked, raising and falling on his toes and getting very red in the face.  Lieutenant D’Hubert, on the contrary, became very pale at the sound of the unsavoury word, then flushed pink to the roots of his fair hair.

“But you can’t go out to fight; you are under arrest, you lunatic,” he objected, with angry scorn.

“There’s the garden.  It’s big enough to lay out your long carcass in,” spluttered out Lieutenant Feraud with such ardour that somehow the anger of the cooler man subsided.

“This is perfectly absurd,” he said, glad enough to think he had found a way out of it for the moment.  “We will never get any of our comrades to serve as seconds.  It’s preposterous.”

“Seconds!  Damn the seconds!  We don’t want any seconds.  Don’t you worry about any seconds.  I will send word to your friends to come and bury you when I am done.  This is no time for ceremonies.  And if you want any witnesses, I’ll send word to the old girl to put her head out of a window at the back.  Stay!  There’s the gardener.  He’ll do.  He’s as deaf as a post, but he has two eyes in his head.  Come along.  I will teach you, my staff officer, that the carrying about of a general’s orders is not always child’s play.”

While thus discoursing he had unbuckled his empty scabbard.  He sent it flying under the bed, and, lowering the point of the sword, brushed past the perplexed Lieutenant D’Hubert, crying:  “Follow me.”  Directly he had flung open the door a faint shriek was heard, and the pretty maid, who had been listening at the keyhole, staggered backward, putting the backs of her hands over her eyes.  He didn’t seem to see her, but as he was crossing the anteroom she ran after him and seized his left arm.  He shook her off and then she rushed upon Lieutenant D’Hubert and clawed at the sleeve of his uniform.

“Wretched man,” she sobbed despairingly.  “Is this what you wanted to find him for?”

“Let me go,” entreated Lieutenant D’Hubert, trying to disengage himself gently.  “It’s like being in a madhouse,” he protested with exasperation.  “Do let me go, I won’t do him any harm.”

A fiendish laugh from Lieutenant Feraud commented that assurance.  “Come along,” he cried impatiently, with a stamp of his foot.

And Lieutenant D’Hubert did follow.  He could do nothing else.  But in vindication of his sanity it must be recorded that as he passed out of the anteroom the notion of opening the street door and bolting out presented itself to this brave youth, only, of course, to be instantly dismissed:  for he felt sure that the other would pursue him without shame or compunction.  And the prospect of an officer of hussars being chased along the street by another officer of hussars with a naked sword could not be for a moment entertained.  Therefore he followed into the garden.  Behind them the girl tottered out too.  With ashy lips and wild, scared eyes, she surrendered to a dreadful curiosity.  She had also a vague notion of rushing, if need be, between Lieutenant Feraud and death.