"My promise?"
"To tell me with whom you are going to fight?"
"Ah, yes! Well, I have two affairs on to-morrow morning. I am going to scratch Baron Carl von Lichtenberg on the arm, and I am going to drive my sword through M. de Coigny's heart."
"Von Lichtenberg!" cried Joubert. "You are going to fight with a Lichtenberg, one of that accursed lot!"
"I am going to fight with M. de Coigny. We have been enemies for years; he has mixed himself in this affair; he has offered himself up as a sacrifice——"
"Mon Dieu!" cried the old fellow, drawing back, "is it you that are speaking, or the devil?"
I was sitting up in bed; and in a mirror across the room I saw the wan reflection of my own face, and started at the expression of wrath and black hatred portrayed there.
I had hated De Coigny for years, but not till now did I know my own capacity for hate. Thus we go through life for years not knowing, till some day some hand draws the curtain back, holds up the mirror, reveals the other man, the Monsieur Hyde who has hidden himself at birth in the heart of Monsieur Jekyll.