“I think you begin to realize, monsieur, what Philippe de Vilmorin must have felt that day at Gavrillac.  I desired that you should first do so.  Since that is accomplished, why, here’s to make an end.”

He went in with lightning rapidity.  For a moment his point seemed to La Tour d’Azyr to be everywhere at once, and then from a low engagement in sixte, Andre-Louis stretched forward with swift and vigorous ease to lunge in tierce.  He drove his point to transfix his opponent whom a series of calculated disengages uncovered in that line.  But to his amazement and chagrin, La Tour d’Azyr parried the stroke; infinitely more to his chagrin La Tour d’Azyr parried it just too late.  Had he completely parried it, all would yet have been well.  But striking the blade in the last fraction of a second, the Marquis deflected the point from the line of his body, yet not so completely but that a couple of feet of that hard-driven steel tore through the muscles of his sword-arm.

To the seconds none of these details had been visible.  All that they had seen had been a swift whirl of flashing blades, and then Andre-Louis stretched almost to the ground in an upward lunge that had pierced the Marquis’ right arm just below the shoulder.

The sword fell from the suddenly relaxed grip of La Tour d’Azyr’s fingers, which had been rendered powerless, and he stood now disarmed, his lip in his teeth, his face white, his chest heaving, before his opponent, who had at once recovered.  With the blood-tinged tip of his sword resting on the ground, Andre-Louis surveyed him grimly, as we survey the prey that through our own clumsiness has escaped us at the last moment.

In the Assembly and in the newspapers this might be hailed as another victory for the Paladin of the Third Estate; only himself could know the extent and the bitternest of the failure.

M. d’Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.

“You are hurt!” he had cried stupidly.

“It is nothing,” said La Tour d’Azyr.  “A scratch.”  But his lip writhed, and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.

D’Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen kerchief, which he tore quickly into strips to improvise a bandage.

Still Andre-Louis continued to stand there, looking on as if bemused.  He continued so until Le Chapelier touched him on the arm.  Then at last he roused himself, sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor did he address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground at once.

As, with Le Chapelier, he was walking slowly and in silent dejection towards the entrance of the Bois, where they had left their carriage, they were passed by the caleche conveying La Tour d’Azyr and his second — which had originally driven almost right up to the spot of the encounter.  The Marquis’ wounded arm was carried in a sling improvised from his companion’s sword-belt.  His sky-blue coat with three collars had been buttoned over this, so that the right sleeve hung empty.  Otherwise, saving a certain pallor, he looked much his usual self.