"Pardieu!" said the captain, who had listened with profound attention, and great expenditure of smoke, to his friend's narrative; "I can hardly say, Sigismund. If I had kept my hands off the butterfly scoundrel when I heard him courting my wife, I should have followed him when he had had his chat out, and requested the pleasure of crossing swords with him at his earliest convenience; and had I got one good cut at him, he should not have needed another. What did your friend?"
"Very nearly what you have said. He went home and destroyed his will, and made another. Then he sought his enemy, to challenge him to an instant encounter. The mean villain denied his treachery, and swore that her to whom his vows of love were addressed was not Oliver's wife, but his sister-in-law. Oliver well knew this to be a lie, but he affected to believe he had been deceived by similarity of dress and imperfect hearing, for the subterfuge had suddenly suggested to him a sure means of punishing his faithless wife, and defeating her seducer's aim. He declared himself willing to aid the views of the foreigner—one Baron Steinfeld, an Austrian of high family, but ruined fortunes—and to urge his sister-in-law to accept his hand. Disagreeably surprised at such willingness, where he had wished and expected opposition, Steinfeld strove to recede, but found extrication impossible from the trap he had rushed into. Finally he was compelled to yield; the less unwillingly because the bride thus given him was not without fortune, which Oliver exaggerated, the better to allure him. So that, when Oliver left him, it was to convey his formal proposals to the lady, who was nothing loath, and to-day they were married."
"To-day!" exclaimed Carcassonne. "This, then, is the wedding you come from. And what said Madame Oliver?"
"What could she say? Made all the secret opposition she could, no doubt; and then, finding it in vain, for her sister seemed as much fascinated by the Austrian Lothario as she was herself, she took ill and kept her bed. It needed all her woman's pride, and her fear of malicious comment, to carry her calmly through to-day's ceremonies and festivities."
"A very strange tale!" cried the captain. "And all true, eh?"
"To the letter. But that is not all. To-day, after the marriage, Oliver sought five minutes' conversation with his newly-made brother-in-law; and his first act, when they were alone, was to hand him the anonymous letter he had received on the day of the masquerade, in which was mentioned the colour of the ribbons worn by Madame Oliver at the ball, as a sign by which Steinfeld was to distinguish her amongst the crowd of dominos."
"Good!" said Carcassonne emphatically. "And what said the Kaiserlic?"
"Denied every thing, until Oliver recapitulated, word for word, certain phrases of the conversation he had overheard. This struck him dumb; but soon he recovered his effrontery, and expressed surprise at Oliver's reviving the subject, especially at that moment."
"'Since you deemed it advisable to overlook the offence at the time, and to promote my marriage with your sister-in-law,' he said, 'I cannot understand your motive for now raking up the grievance.'
"'I will explain,' replied Oliver. 'I married you to my sister-in-law that you might never be my widow's husband, whether I die a few months hence, by the hand of God, or to-morrow by yours, in the duel which shall no longer be delayed.'"