And now from beyond the table the Marquis spoke icily, and as he spoke his right hand stirred under the ample folds of his greatcoat.

“I am glad, M. Moreau, that you take that tone with me.  You relieve me of the last scruple.  You spoke of Fate just now, and I must agree with you that Fate has meddled oddly, though perhaps not to the end that you discern.  For years now you have chosen to stand in my path and thwart me at every turn, holding over me a perpetual menace.  Persistently you have sought my life in various ways, first indirectly and at last directly.  Your intervention in my affairs has ruined my highest hopes — more effectively, perhaps, than you suppose.  Throughout you have been my evil genius.  And you are even one of the agents of this climax of despair that has been reached by me to-night.”

“Wait!  Listen!” Madame was panting.  She flung away from Andre-Louis, as if moved by some premonition of what was coming.  “Gervais!  This is horrible!”

“Horrible, perhaps, but inevitable.  Himself he has invited it.  I am a man in despair, the fugitive of a lost cause.  That man holds the keys of escape.  And, besides, between him and me there is a reckoning to be paid.”

His hand came from beneath the coat at last, and it came armed with a pistol.

Mme. de Plougastel screamed, and flung herself upon him.  On her knees now, she clung to his arm with all her strength and might.

Vainly he sought to shake himself free of that desperate clutch.

“Therese!” he cried.  “Are you mad?  Will you destroy me and yourself?  This creature has the safe-conducts that mean our salvation.  Himself, he is nothing.”

From the background Aline, a breathless, horror-stricken spectator of that scene, spoke sharply, her quick mind pointing out the line of checkmate.

“Burn the safe-conducts, Andre-Louis.  Burn them at once — in the candles there.”

But Andre-Louis had taken advantage of that moment of M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s impotence to draw a pistol in his turn.  “I think it will be better to burn his brains instead,” he said.  “Stand away from him, madame.”

Far from obeying that imperious command, Mme. de Plougastel rose to her feet to cover the Marquis with her body.  But she still clung to his arm, clung to it with unsuspected strength that continued to prevent him from attempting to use the pistol.

“Andre!  For God’s sake, Andre!” she panted hoarsely over her shoulder.

“Stand away, madame,” he commanded her again, more sternly, “and let this murderer take his due.  He is jeopardizing all our lives, and his own has been forfeit these years.  Stand away!” He sprang forward with intent now to fire at his enemy over her shoulder, and Aline moved too late to hinder him.

“Andre!  Andre!”

Panting, gasping, haggard of face, on the verge almost of hysteria, the distracted Countess flung at last an effective, a terrible barrier between the hatred of those men, each intent upon taking the other’s life.