"Three years ago, soon after the Frenchwoman came first to England, brought over in the suite of the Duchess of Orleans."
"'Tis pity you never told me all," said Andrew, "specially since I might have made my way to Paris after Candia!"
"Andrew, I was ashamed, ashamed that even you should know it. And--and--what could you have done?"
"What!" exclaimed his brother. "What! Well! tested the skill of this maître d'armes--perhaps avenged you."
"It might have made a widow of her, left her alone and defenceless in a strange land."
"Possibly!" Andrew replied to this, with the careless shrug of the shoulders which he had learnt unconsciously in his foreign travel. "Possibly!" And again he spoke inwardly to himself, saying, "As I shall do yet--if he has married her."
There was silence after this for some time as they sat in the now gathering darkness, a silence only interrupted by Bridget bringing in the lamps. But when she had left them alone once more, after telling Andrew he was sitting too long with his brother, who by now should be abed, and that she would be back to assist him to it, the former spoke again.
"Bridget hinted a word," he said, "when first I came here, made suggestion that you yourself nourished hopes of punishing this man--this Vicomte de Bois-Vallée," and he pronounced the name clearly, as though to make sure he had learnt it aright--"would have done so had your health been stronger, and you more fit to cope with him."
"I--I would have done so then," poor Philip said, "had I been able to discover he had wronged her as well as me. I was mad, furious, at first. Poor swordsman as I am, I would have tried to find him out; have hurled myself against him; have, even though he had run me through and through, striven to kill him."
"So, so!" said Andrew, "you would have done that had you kept well and strong?"