“All—except her consent,” answered Grafton, with a mocking smile. “I love her. I know her. I trust her. However this may fall out, she will never marry you.”
He returned to his place. “I think I’ve put a shake into his hand,” he said to Burroughs, in an undertone. “I don’t mind admitting I tried to, as this is a farce so far as I am concerned. I’m not anxious to die if I can help it.”
Moltzahn, holding the pistols, was standing midway between Aloyse and Grafton, and a little to one side. He looked from Grafton to Aloyse. “Walk towards me,” he said, “and when you are face to face turn your backs each to the other. I will hand each of you a pistol. Walk towards your places again, and when you reach them stand without turning until Mr. Burroughs begins to count. At three turn and fire at your convenience. Are you ready, gentlemen?”
Aloyse and Grafton bowed.
“Advance!”
They walked slowly and steadily, each towards the other. Grafton seemed dreamy and abstracted, Aloyse’s little brown eyes were angry and his brows were drawn in an exaggerated frown. When they were about two feet apart, Moltzahn, standing as near to one as to the other, said: “Turn!”
They wheeled, and he handed each a cocked pistol. “To your places, gentlemen,” he said. They began the slow return. Burroughs, his hands trembling, was trying to moisten his lips for the giving of the signal. The two doctors, all in black and with long brown beards, stood apart, the Swiss doctor interested but calm, the Zweitenbourgian with his knees knocking together and his hands sliding nervously one over the other. The sun, clearing the crest of a ridge, sent an enormous billow of light to burst through the mists and flood the dense, dew-showered foliage of the western front of the valley.
“Now, Mr. Burroughs,” said Moltzahn, in a low tone.
“One!” said Burroughs, and his voice was thin and shrill; the sound of it made him shiver. “Oh, God!” he thought, “I may be giving the signal for a murder.”