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

“Let me go,” entreated Lieut.  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 Lieut.  Feraud commented that assurance.  “Come along!” he shouted, with a stamp of his foot.

And Lieut.  D’Hubert did follow.  He could do nothing else.  Yet in vindication of his sanity it must be recorded that as he passed through the ante-room 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 herself to a dreadful curiosity.  She had also the notion of rushing if need be between Lieut.  Feraud and death.

The deaf gardener, utterly unconscious of approaching footsteps, went on watering his flowers till Lieut.  Feraud thumped him on the back.  Beholding suddenly an enraged man flourishing a big sabre, the old chap trembling in all his limbs dropped the watering-pot.  At once Lieut.  Feraud kicked it away with great animosity, and, seizing the gardener by the throat, backed him against a tree.  He held him there, shouting in his ear, “Stay here, and look on!  You understand?  You’ve got to look on!  Don’t dare budge from the spot!”

Lieut.  D’Hubert came slowly down the walk, unclasping his dolman with unconcealed disgust.  Even then, with his hand already on the hilt of his sword, he hesitated to draw till a roar, “En garde, fichtre!  What do you think you came here for?” and the rush of his adversary forced him to put himself as quickly as possible in a posture of defence.

The clash of arms filled that prim garden, which hitherto had known no more warlike sound than the click of clipping shears; and presently the upper part of an old lady’s body was projected out of a window upstairs.  She tossed her arms above her white cap, scolding in a cracked voice.  The gardener remained glued to the tree, his toothless mouth open in idiotic astonishment, and a little farther up the path the pretty girl, as if spellbound to a small grass plot, ran a few steps this way and that, wringing her hands and muttering crazily.  She did not rush between the combatants:  the onslaughts of Lieut.  Feraud were so fierce that her heart failed her.  Lieut.  D’Hubert, his faculties concentrated upon defence, needed all his skill and science of the sword to stop the rushes of his adversary.  Twice already he had to break ground.  It bothered him to feel his foothold made insecure by the round,