Lucien received his weapon with a joyous smile.
When Chateau Renaud took his pistol he became deadly pale. Then he passed his hand between his cravat and his neck as if he were suffocating.
No one can conceive with what feelings of terror I regarded this young man, handsome, rich, and elegant, who but yesterday believed he had many years still before him, and who to-day, with the sweat on his brow and agony at his heart, felt he was condemned.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?” asked M. de Chateaugrand.
“Yes,” replied Lucien.
M. de Chateau Renaud made a sign in the affirmative.
As for me I was obliged to turn away, not daring to look upon the scene.
I heard the two successive clappings of the hands, and at the third the simultaneous reports of the pistols. I turned round.
Chateau Renaud was lying on the ground, stark dead; he had not uttered a sound nor made a movement.
I approached the body, impelled by that invincible curiosity which compels one to see the end of a catastrophe.