Part 8 (2/2)

I went, in my excitement, first to the wrong corner. Then, discovering my blunder, I retraced my steps, and at last secured admittance to the place where De Noyard's valets tarried.

To the man who opened the door, I said, ”Are you Jacques, the serving-man of Monsieur de Noyard?”

”I am n.o.body's serving man,” was the reply, in a tone of indignation; but a second man who had come to the door spoke up, ”I am Jacques.”

”Hallo, Monsieur de la Tournoire,” came a voice from a group of men seated at a table. ”Come and join us, and show my friends how you fellows of the French Guards can drink!”

It was De Rilly, very merry with wine.

”I cannot, De Rilly,” I replied, stepping into the place. ”I have very important business elsewhere.” Then I turned to Jacques and said, quietly, ”Go, at once, to your master, and send your comrade for a surgeon to follow you there. Do you know the house in which he is?”

The servant made no answer, but turned pale. ”Come!” he said to another servant, who had joined him from an obscure corner of the place. The two immediately lighted torches and left, from which fact I inferred that Jacques knew where to find his master.

”What is all this mystery?” cried De Rilly, jovially, rising and coming over to me, while the man who had opened the door, and who was evidently the host, closed it and moved away. ”Come, warm yourself with a bottle!

Why, my friend, you are as white as a ghost, and you look as if you had been perspiring blood!”

”I must go, at once, De Rilly. It is a serious matter.”

”Then hang me if I don't come, too!” he said, suddenly sobered, and he grasped his cloak and sword. ”That is, unless I should be _de trop_.”

”Come. I thank you,” I said; and we left the place together.

”Whose blood is it?” asked De Rilly, as we hurried along the narrow street, back to the house.

”That of M. de Noyard.”

”What? A duel?”

”A kind of duel,--a strange mistake!

”The devil! Won't the Queen-mother give thanks! And won't the Duke of Guise be angry!”

”M. de Noyard is not dead yet. His wound may not be fatal.”

I led the way into the house and up the steps to the apartment. It was now lighted up by the torch which Jacques had brought. De Noyard was still lying in the position in which he had been when I left him. The servant stood beside him, looking down at his face, and holding the torch so as to light up the features.

”How do you feel now, monsieur?” I asked, hastening forward.

There was no answer. The servant raised his eyes to me, and said, in a tone of unnatural calmness, ”Do you not see that he is dead, M. de la Tournoire?”

Horror-stricken, I knelt beside the body. The heart no longer beat; the face was still,--the eyes stared between unquivering lids, in the light of the torch.

”Oh, my G.o.d! I have killed him!” I murmured.

”Come away. You can do nothing here,” said De Rilly, quietly. He caught me by the shoulder, and led me out of the room.

”Let us leave this neighborhood as soon as possible,” he said, as we descended the stairs. ”It is most unfortunate that the valet knows your name. He heard me speak it at the tavern, and he will certainly recall also that I hailed you as one of the French Guards.”

<script>