Margaret was avenged. With head cast down and failing heart he followed his stern guide, while still the fitful twilight, reflected from the dazzling snow, shone cold and calm over the hills. The stricken man groaned in spirit. "It is the bitterness of death," he said to himself. "Mon Dieu! I am punished. I would have seen la petite. She will grieve for me."
His thoughts were broken in upon suddenly; they had reached the border of a deep ravine, and Maurice stopped. He looked round: "The light is uncertain, but we shall have the same chance. Whoever falls, falls there."
He pointed down to the abyss, fathomless in the dim evening light.
"We have no seconds—allow me to arrange everything."
He took out the pistols, examined their priming with minute care, and handed one to L'Estrange.
"I will give the word," he said; "we fire together."
With steady, measured tread he paced the distance that was to divide them, then took his place by the ravine, pale, calm, determined—the avenger.
Maurice Grey did not suppose for a moment that he would fall, though, a true Englishman, he would give his enemy a fair chance for life. Evil as he believed this man to be, deserving death for the traitorous wrong he had consummated, he would yet give him the power of defending himself. But as this man of iron nerve counted out unfalteringly the seconds that divided one of them from death, he showed his belief in the issue by the defiance he shouted out across the shadows: "But yesterday I would have taken my own life, and with this very weapon; now I take yours. Traitor, coward, slanderer of the innocent, prepare for death!"
Was it the knell of fate? No answer came from the condemned man, but before the fatal ball could cleave the air, before the word that might have meant death to one of them had been spoken, he staggered strangely, gave utterance to a gurgling cry and fell forward to the ground.