“That he was dead?”
“He told me that he had been killed. The dead never lie!”
“And he said in what way?”
“In a duel.”
“By whom?”
“By M. de Chateau Renaud.”
“Oh no, Lucien, that cannot be,” I exclaimed, “you have obtained your information in some other way.”
“Do you think I am likely to joke at such a time?”
“I beg your pardon. But truly what you tell me is so strange, and everything that relates to you and your brother so out of ordinary nature, that——”
“That you hesitate to believe it. Well, I can understand the feeling. But wait. My brother was hit here,” he continued, as he opened his shirt and showed me the blue mark of the bullet on his flesh, “he was wounded above the sixth rib on the right side—do you believe that?”