’Bah! brother, you do not understand, half a foreigner as you are.  This was the only way left to me to protect my sister from the insults your English folly had brought on her.’

Eustace made no answer.  He could not speak, for the exertion and shock had been too much for him.  His mouth was filled with blood.  They were all about him in an instant then, Solivet and Darpent both in horror, each feeling that he might in a manner have been the cause of that bleeding, which might in a moment be fatal.  Eustace himself knew best what to do, and sat down on the step leaning against Sir Francis, so as not to add to the danger.

The fray had been undisturbed.  In that delectable city people held aloof from such things instead of stopping them, but a doctor suddenly appeared on the scene, ‘attracted like a vulture,’ as Sir Francis said; and they had some ado to prevent him from unbuttoning Eustace’s doublet to search for a wound before they could make him understand what had really happened.  They obtained a fiacre, and Eustace was placed in it.  In this condition they brought him home and put him to bed, telling us poor women only that he had interfered in a street fray and over-exerted himself.  It was shock enough for us to find all the improvements of a whole year overthrown, as he lay white and still, not daring to speak.

They had agreed on the way home to keep us in ignorance, or at least to let us think that the attack had been made by strangers, simply because of his connection with the Big Beard.  Meg’s Nicolas was first to tell us that it was M. Darpent whom they had rescued, and that he had called at the porter’s lodge on his way home to inquire for M. le Baron, bruised all over, and evidently seriously hurt.  And while still trying to disbelieve this, another report arrived through the maidservants that M. de Solivet and d’Aubepine had soundly cudgeled M. Darpent, and that M. le Baron and M. d’Aubepine had fought a duel on the spot, in which my brother had been wounded.

Meg was nearly as frantic as I was.  We could not speak to Eustace, and Solivet and d’Aubepine, finding themselves known, had both hurried away at peep of day, for it was a serious thing to have nearly killed a man in office; but Meg desired that if Sir Francis called to inquire for my brother we should see him, and she also sent Nicolas to inquire for M. Darpent, who, we heard, was confined to his bed with a broken arm.

Poor Clement! such was his reward for the interview where I had used him so ill, and been so unjust to him.  For, as we came to understand, it really was all that wretched little Cecile’s fault.  She would do anything to please that husband of hers, and she communicated to him that she understood the secret of my resistance to the Poligny match, and had been infinitely shocked at my behaviour at Lady Ommaney’s.

The cowardly fellow had hated Clement ever since the baffling of the attempt on Margaret.  So he told Solivet, and they united in this attack, with a half a dozen of their bravoes, got together for the occasion!  We heard the truth of the affair from Sir Francis, and it was well for Solivet that he was out of my reach!