De Mortémar had stowed the packet carefully away inside his coat, Gaston keenly watching his antagonist the while.
"Are you ready, milor?" he asked now with marked insolence of manner.
"At your service," replied the other quietly. "M. de Mortémar, will you give the word?"
The two men stood opposite to one another, a table not four feet wide between them. Each held a pistol in his left hand. Of these one was loaded, the other not. De Mortémar had cleared the table, pushing aside the decanter of wine, the tureen of soup, the glasses. The window was still open, and from that outside world which to these men here present seemed so far away, there came the sound of the old church belfry tolling the hour of eight, and still from afar that melancholy tune, the Norman ditty sung by young throats:
"C'est les Normands, qu'à dit ma mère,
"C'est les Normands qu'ont conquis l'Angleterre!"
"Fire!" said de Mortémar.
Two arms were raised. Eye was fixed to eye for one brief second, then lowered for the aim. There was a slight dull sound, then a terrible curse muttered below the breath, as the pistol which Gaston de Stainville had vainly tried to fire dropped from his hand.
Had his excitement blinded him when he chose his weapon, or was it just fate, ruthless, inscrutable, that had placed the loaded pistol in Lord Eglinton's hand?
"A blank!" he shouted with a blasphemous oath. "À vous, milor! Curse you, why don't you fire?"
"Fire, milor, in Heaven's name," said Mortémar, who was as pale as death. "'Tis cruelty to prolong."
But Eglinton too had dropped his arm.
"M. le Comte de Stainville," he said calmly, "before I use this weapon against you, as I would against a mad dog, I'll propose a bargain for your acceptance."
"You'd buy that packet of precious documents from me, eh?" sneered Gaston savagely, "nay, milor, 'tis no use offering millions to a dying man. . . . Shoot, shoot, milor! the widowed Comtesse de Stainville will deal with those documents and no one else. . . . They are not for sale, I tell you, not for all your millions now!"
"Not even for this pistol, M. le Comte?"
And calm, serene with that whimsical smile again playing round the corners of his expressive mouth, Lord Eglinton offered the loaded pistol to his enemy.
"My life? . . ." stammered Gaston, "you would? . . ."
"Nay, mine, M. le Comte," rejoined milor. "I'll not stir from this spot. I offer you this pistol and you shall use it at your pleasure, after you have handed me that packet of letters."
Instinctively Gaston had drawn back, lost in a maze of surprise.
"An you'll not take the weapon, M. le Comte," said Eglinton decisively, "I shoot."
There was a moment's silence, whilst Gaston's pride fought a grim battle with that awful instinct of self-preservation, that strange love of fleeting life to which poor mortals cling.
Men were not cowards in those days; life was cheap and oft sold for the gratification of petty vanity, yet who shall blame Gaston if, with certain death before him, he chose to forego his revenge?
"Give me that pistol, milor," he said dully, "de Mortémar, hand over that packet to Lord Eglinton."
He took the pistol from milor, and it was his own hand that trembled.
Silently de Mortémar obeyed. Milor took the packet of papers from him, then held them one by one to the flame of the candle: first the map, then the letter which bore Lydie's name writ so boldly across it. The black ash curled and fell from his hand on to the table, he gripped the paper until his seared fingers could hold it no longer.
Then he once more stood up, turning straight toward Gaston.
"I am ready, M. le Comte," he said simply.
Gaston raised his left arm and fired. There was a wild, an agonized shriek which came from a woman's throat, coupled with one of horror from de Mortémar's lips, as le petit Anglais stood for the space of a few seconds, quite still, firm and upright, with scarce a change upon his calm face, then sank forward without a groan.
"Madame, you are hurt!" shouted de Mortémar, who was almost dazed with surprise at the sight of a woman at this awful and supreme moment. He had just seen her, in the vivid flash when Gaston raised his arm and fired: she had rushed forward then, with the obvious intention of throwing herself before the murderous weapon, and now was making pathetic and vain efforts to raise her husband's inanimate body from the table against which he had fallen.
"Coward! coward!" she sobbed in anguish, "you have stilled the bravest heart in France!"
"Pray God that I have not," murmured Gaston fervently, as, impelled by some invisible force, he threw the pistol from him, then sank on his knees and buried his face in his hands.
But Mortémar had soon recovered his presence of mind, and had already reached his wounded friend, calling quickly to Jean Marie who apparently had followed in the wake of Madame la Marquise in her wild rush from her coach to the inner room.
Together the two men succeeded in lifting Lord Eglinton and in gently insinuating his body backward into a recumbent position. Thus Lydie—still on her knees—received her lord in her arms. Her eyes were fixed upon his pallid face with passionate intensity. It seemed as if she would wrest from those closed lids the secret of life or death.
"He'll not die? . . ." she whispered wildly; "tell me that he'll not die!"
A deep red stain was visible on the left side, spreading on the fine cloth of the coat. With clumsy though willing fingers, Mortémar was doing his best to get the waistcoat open, and to stop temporarily the rapid flow of blood with Lydie's scarf, which she had wrenched from her shoulders.
"Quick, Jean Marie! the leech!" he ordered, "and have the rooms prepared . . ."
Then, as Jean Marie obeyed with unusual alacrity and anon his stentorian voice calling to ostler and maids echoed through the silence of the house, Lydie's eyes met those of the young man.
"Madame! Madame! I beseech you," he said appalled at the terrible look of agony expressed on the beautiful, marble-like face, "let me attend you . . . I vow that you are hurt."
"No! no!" she rejoined quickly, "only my hand . . . I tried to clutch the weapon . . . but 'twas too late . . ."
But she yielded her hand to him. The shot had indeed pierced the fleshy portion between thumb and forefinger, leaving an ugly gash: the wound was bleeding profusely and already she felt giddy and sick. De Mortémar bound up the little hand with his handkerchief as best he could. She hardly heeded him, beyond that persistent appeal, terrible in its heartrending pathos:
"He'll not die . . . tell me that he'll not die."
Whilst not five paces away, Gaston de Stainville still knelt, praying that the ugly stain of murder should not for ever sully his hand.