'But we must see each other again—'
'Trust to heaven for that,' gasped the wounded man, adding generously, 'away! I hear footsteps—'tis the watch!'
'Forgive me, Chevalier,' said I, trembling with emotion, 'but this quarrel was not of my seeking.'
'From my soul I forgive you, but begone.'
'Farewell!'
And with this word I turned and fled, just as a mounted patrol of the watch turned the corner of the Rue de la Mortellerie, and entered the Place de la Grève.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHATEAU.
'In the affairs of every one,' says a French writer, 'there is a moment which decides upon his future. It is almost always chance, which takes a man as the wind does a leaf, and throws him into some new and unknown path, where, once entered, he is obliged to obey a superior force, and where, while believing himself free, he is but the slave of circumstances, and the plaything of events.'
I have been much struck by the force and truth of this passage, which seems to bear directly upon my own career in life:—to resume.