No shadow of any sort had been upon him throughout that sunny day—the last day of April.
The next morning he went with a perfectly light heart to the garden outside Paris which had been chosen as the scene of his encounter with the Duc de Prangins. He had fought many duels in his time; he was a fine fencer, though of late he had neglected to keep his hand in practice, and he was a man always of the coolest and most stolid courage. He had no kind of apprehension of the result; he had taken no measures in case he should fall; it seemed so entirely impossible; besides, all his affairs were in order, all his vast wealth was disposed of with legal accuracy and care in documents which were safe in their iron safes in the muniment room of Zaraizoff; he went to his appointment with no more thought or apprehension than he would have gone to the ‘tir aux pigeons.’
He lighted a large cigar and stood chatting with his friends to the last moment. Now and then he put his hand in his coat; it was to feel for the little rose he had taken from her the day before; but his friends could not know that.
For some moments after the rapiers crossed the duel was bloodless; a mere display of even and perfect science on each side; but at the third encounter his guard was broken; the sword of the Duc de Prangins entered his left side and passed straight through the left lung out beneath the shoulder; his adversary could not draw it back; with the blade transfixing his breast thus, Platon Napraxine fell heavily to the ground. When they endeavoured to raise him he looked at them, and his lips moved; it was only the hoarsest murmur, but it said once, twice, thrice—‘Do not tell her! Do not tell her! Do not tell her!’
They let him lie where he was; they gathered about him pale and in silence. They all knew he was a dead man.
For one moment he looked up at the blue morning sky where the clouds were drifting and a flock of swallows was circling with gay buoyant movement; there were all the odours of spring on the air, and the grass which he lay on was yellow with kingcups and white with daisies. With his right hand he feebly made the sign of the cross on his breast; then he thrust the same hand within his coat once more, and with a terrible shuddering, choking sigh his last breath passed away. When they unloosened his lifeless fingers they found them clasped on a faded tea-rose.
‘Who will tell Princess Napraxine?’ said the men around him, with white lips, to one another.
The man who had killed him, throwing on his great-coat in haste, said with a cruel smile:
‘She will have a Te Deum in every church in Paris. You waste your pity.’