"I can remember," replied the countess, "but what are you going to do after that? Will they not harm you?"
St. Hilaire laughed lightly. "Oh, I will take care of that. I expect to follow you in a few minutes." Then he turned and advanced a few steps in order to cover her retreat more fully.
"The citizeness has convinced me that she is nothing but a poor sewing-girl in great distress at the illness of her father. I have told her that she might continue on her errand for a doctor unmolested. You are over-zealous, good Haillon, to see an aristocrat in every shadow."
"She has disappeared," cried Gonflou.
Haillon raised his musket with finger on the trigger. St. Hilaire's hand struck upward just as the detonation echoed through the quiet street. Then the smoke, clearing away, revealed Haillon upon the pavement, while the sword in St. Hilaire's hand was red with blood.
"He has killed a citizen," bellowed Gonflou. "Comrades, cut him down. Avenge the death of a patriot."
Three sabres were uplifted against the citizen St. Hilaire. He drew back a pace or two and with a smile upon his lips warded off the blows aimed at his head and breast. Then he poised himself and set his face firmly. The sword which had first won renown on the field of Rocroy now flashed in the light of the flickering lamp of the passage d'Arcis, and another of his assailants fell to the ground.
The wrist that wielded it was just as supple and the white fingers that held the jeweled hilt just as strong as when, in the days gone by, the Marquis de St. Hilaire was known as the best swordsman in his regiment.
His two remaining adversaries hesitated in their attack for a moment. Then Gonflou, bleeding from two deep wounds and bellowing like an angry bull, sprang at him again with his heavy sabre lifted in both hands.
One of the two fallen men had half raised himself and dragged over to where Haillon lay. He drew a pistol from the dead man's belt and, leaning forward, fired under Gonflou's arm. The blow from Gonflou's sabre was parried, then Jean Raphael de St. Hilaire fell forward on his face and lay without moving upon the pavement, while the sword of Rocroy fell ringing to the ground.