As if the name had called for an answer, a light knock came to the door of the box. The door opened, and Baron Carl von Lichtenberg stood before me. M. le Duc de Choiseul and the Marquis de Mérode, two well-known boulevardiers, stood behind him.
"Monsieur," said Von Lichtenberg, advancing towards me, "I have sought you in many places without avail since the incident which occurred at the Mirlitons, on the 1st of October last. I sought you to pay you this compliment." And he flicked me on the shoulder with the white glove which he had drawn from his hand.
I bowed, and he withdrew.
That was all. A deadly insult, very nicely wrapped up, lay in "this compliment"—and he had struck me.
Ah, well! it was to be. Although I was a living man with a will of my own, it seemed that my will could not prevent my meeting Von Lichtenberg; and, to point the matter, the challenge would have to come from me. I could not escape. Heaven knows I have a sufficiency of animal courage, yet for a moment the thought came to me of leaving Paris and ignoring the insult, sacrificing honour and name rather than submit to the unknown destination towards which Fate was driving me. Some instinct told me that this duel would have consequences far beyond what I could imagine; that it was a turning-point in my life, having passed which my fate would be irremediably fixed.
Only for a moment came the suicidal thought of flight, to be immediately dismissed. Let come what might, it was not my fault. I would send my seconds to Von Lichtenberg in the morning. Then I turned to Eloise, and found her leaning against the side of the box, pale, and seemingly in a fainting state.
"I am all right," she murmured, "but, oh, Toto, it was his face!"
"His face?"
"His face I saw deep down in the water of the moat, drowned, and with the weeds floating across it."
I remembered that day when, leaning on the drawbridge rail, and looking down into the moat water, she had seen what seemed a face.