“There is a law,” he answered.  “The law that this rash young man himself evokes.  The law of the sword.”  He spoke very gravely, almost sadly.  For he realized that after all the ground was tender.  “You are not to suppose that he is to continue indefinitely his career of evil and of murder.  Sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the others.  You have observed that my cousin Chabrillane is among the number of this assassin’s victims; that he was killed on Tuesday last.”

“If I have not expressed my condolence, Azyr, it is because my indignation stifles at the moment every other feeling.  The scoundrel!  You say that sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the others.  I pray that it may be soon.”

The Marquis answered him quietly, without anything but sorrow in his voice.  “I think your prayer is likely to be heard.  This wretched young man has an engagement for to-morrow, when his account may be definitely settled.”

He spoke with such calm conviction that his words had all the sound of a sentence of death.  They suddenly stemmed the flow of M. de Kercadiou’s anger.  The colour receded from his inflamed face; dread looked out of his pale eyes, to inform M. de La Tour d’Azyr, more clearly than any words, that M. de Kercadiou’s hot speech had been the expression of unreflecting anger, that his prayer that retribution might soon overtake his godson had been unconsciously insincere.  Confronted now by the fact that this retribution was about to be visited upon that scoundrel, the fundamental gentleness and kindliness of his nature asserted itself; his anger was suddenly whelmed in apprehension; his affection for the lad beat up to the surface, making Andre-Louis’ sin, however hideous, a thing of no account by comparison with the threatened punishment.

M. de Kercadiou moistened his lips.

“With whom is this engagement?” he asked in a voice that by an effort he contrived to render steady.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr bowed his handsome head, his eyes upon the gleaming parquetry of the floor.  “With myself,” he answered quietly, conscious already with a tightening of the heart that his answer must sow dismay.  He caught the sound of a faint outcry from Aline; he saw the sudden recoil of M. de Kercadiou.  And then he plunged headlong into the explanation that he deemed necessary.

“In view of his relations with you, M. de Kercadiou, and because of my deep regard for you, I did my best to avoid this, even though as you will understand the death of my dear friend and cousin Chabrillane seemed to summon me to action, even though I knew that my circumspection was becoming matter for criticism among my friends.  But yesterday this unbridled young man made further restraint impossible to me.  He provoked me deliberately and publicly.  He put upon me the very grossest affront, and... to-morrow morning in the Bois... we meet.”

He faltered a little at the end, fully conscious of the hostile atmosphere in which he suddenly found himself.  Hostility from M. de Kercadiou, the latter’s earlier change of manner had already led him to expect; the hostility of mademoiselle came more in the nature of a surprise.