"Shot through the heart: quite dead."
The Duke of Hereward groaned aloud. None of his wrongs could have been such a calamity as this! None of his sufferings could have equalled in intensity of agony this appalling sense of blood-guiltiness!
"Can nothing be done?" he inquired, not with the slightest hope that anything could, but rather in the idiocy of utter despair.
"Nothing. No medical skill can raise the dead," solemnly answered the surgeon.
"One of you fellows can bring the railway rug out of our carriage. I knew it would be needed," said the serenely practical colonel.
The count's servant started to obey.
The duke groaned and turned away from the body of his fallen foe, upon which he could not endure longer to gaze.
The Russian baron came up to him, and with the knightly courtesy of his caste and country, said:
"Monseigneur may rest tranquil. Everything has been conducted in accordance with the most rigid rules of honor. The result has been unfortunate for my distinguished principal, but Monseigneur has nothing with which to reproach himself."
"Thanks, Baron. You are kind to say so. Yet I would that I had never lived to see this day; or the worthless woman who has caused this catastrophe!" exclaimed the duke, as he walked hurriedly away and hid himself and his remorse in the inclosure of his own carriage.