"Let them kill each other, the fools, if they have no more sense," she muttered, scornfully, heartlessly, as she retired to her salon.
Remond's horses had been so frightened by the pistol-shot that they had run off with their alarmed driver, who had dropped the reins in the first moment of terror. There now remained only two of the six souls present a moment ago, Van Zandt and Remond lying silent where they had fallen under the cold, white light of the moonlight.
But presently the Frenchman struggled slowly up to his feet, and put his hand to his shoulder with a stifled curse.
"The dog has put a bullet through my shoulder. Never mind, we are quits, for I ran my knife through his heart," he muttered, hastening away from the scene of bloodshed.
But Eliot Van Zandt lay still where he had fallen, with his ghastly white face upturned to the sky, and the red blood pouring in a torrent from the gaping wound in his breast.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Carmontelle made his way with what speed he could, hampered as he was by the heavy, unconscious form of the girl, to the carriage which he had in waiting at the end of the square. His speed was not great enough, however, to hinder him from hearing the sharp report of the pistol as it went off in Van Zandt's hand, and a slight tremor ran along his firm nerves.
"Somebody killed or wounded—and I pray it may be Remond, the dastardly villain," he thought. "I should not like for any harm to come to that noble young Van Zandt."
Then he paused while the driver sprung down from the box and opened the door for him. He laid his burden down upon a seat, sprung in, and then the door was closed.