'"Has your courage failed yet?" he tauntingly asked, as he dexterously detached his sword from the scabbard.
'I was too vexed to speak. I said nothing, but fixed myself in the best position I knew to receive his expected attack.
'"Ha! Is that it?" he exclaimed, "think of your maître d'armes, and recommend your soul to God, if you believe in Him."
'At the last word he sprang forward, made a feint at my left leg, but carried his weapon round in a circle in the one swing, and was bringing it down on my sword-arm. But I knew the trick of old, and instead of attempting to parry the feint, I turned my body aside to the left, and held my weapon extended with a quick lunge to the front. He ran in straight upon it with a force that made it shiver. His sword fell from his grasp; his hands were thrown up over his head; he fell back, gave one convulsive shake of the limbs, and his life's blood gushed over the lips on which the taunts that brought him to his fate were yet trembling.
'I do not know how I found my way to my quarters on that dreadful night. The next thing I recollect was rising in the morning exhausted as if after the delirium of a fever, and descending feebly to my breakfast at the café opposite. A knot of officers were eagerly conversing outside the door.
'"Chauvin," said a comrade of mine from amongst them, "have you presented that letter yet?"
'I shook my head.
'"You may spare yourself the trouble; your friend was found at daybreak in a corner of the ramparts, dead as a burst shell, run through the right lung."
'I shuddered and felt as if my spine were turned to ice. Feigning urgent private business, I sought leave of absence, and flew to Paris to acquaint the mother of her whom I looked upon as my fiancée with the dreadful secret. She heard me, never changed colour, said she believed me; his conduct was in keeping with his character, which was head-strong; she did not blame me for killing him—it was done in self-defence; but, added she in the end, this would not have happened if you had kept your promise not to smoke. "The man who cannot keep his word shall be no suitor for my daughter's hand—never again approach me or mine——"
'"But Caroline whom I love," I cried.