I looked at the rapier in my hand. There were a few contracting spots on it.
Then De Brissac held my coat for me.
"His foot slipped, or you would not have got him like that," I heard him say.
"Oh, it is unpleasant enough, but the thing is perfectly in order. You need have no fear. Yes, yes; I will lead you to her. You will be at the Place Vendôme, I suppose? There will be an inquiry, and all that."
And then I found myself holding again the two warm hands. I was not thinking of De Coigny. I was in a dream. I stepped into a carriage that was before me. I heard De Brissac close the door, and say to the coachman "Paris." Then I felt a girl's arm round my neck.
"Toto," said a voice, "do you remember the white rabbit with the green eyes?"
The killing of De Coigny had blinded me, maddened me, and drawn from some distant past into full birth all sorts of strange and hitherto unknown attributes of myself.
It was as though Philippe de Saluce, slowly struggling into new birth during the last forty-eight hours, had, with the slaying of my adversary, suddenly become full born.
It was necessary for me to kill, it seems, before he could find speech and thought, and stand fully reincarnated.
"Oh, far beyond that—far beyond that!" I murmured, not knowing fully what I said or what I meant, knowing only that mysterious doors had been flung open, and that through them a spirit had rushed, filling me and embracing through me the woman at my side.