I took a sudden resolution. "Have you ever heard, Mademoiselle," I said gravely, plucking off while I spoke the dead leaves from a plant beside me, "of a gentleman by name De Berault? Known in Paris, so I have heard, by the sobriquet of the Black Death?"
"The duellist?" she answered, in wonder. "Yes, I have heard of him. He killed a young gentleman of this province at Nancy two years back. It was a sad story," she continued, shuddering, "of a dreadful man. God keep our friends from such!"
"Amen!" I said quietly. But, in spite of myself, I could not meet her eyes.
"Why?" she answered, quickly taking alarm at my silence. "What of him, M. de Barthe? Why have you mentioned him?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered soberly. "I am he."
"You!" she cried, in a voice which pierced me, "You--M. de Berault? Impossible!" But, glancing askance at her.--I could not face her,--I saw that the blood had left her cheeks.
"Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered, in a low voice. "De Barthe was my mother's name. When I came here, a stranger, I took it that I might not be known; that I might again speak to a good woman and not see her shrink. That--but why trouble you with all this?" I continued proudly, rebelling against her silence, her turned shoulder, her averted face. "You asked me, Mademoiselle, how I could take a blow and let the striker go. I have answered. It is the one privilege M. de Berault possesses."
"Then," she replied quickly, but almost in a whisper, "if I were M. de Berault, I would use it, and never fight again."
"In that event, Mademoiselle," I answered cynically, "I should lose my men friends as well as my women friends. Like Monseigneur, the Cardinal, I rule by fear."
She shuddered, either at the name or at the idea my words called up, and, for a moment, we stood awkwardly silent. The shadow of the sundial fell between us; the garden was still; here and there a leaf fluttered slowly down, or a seed fell. With each instant of silence I felt the gulf between us growing wider, I felt myself growing harder; I mocked at her past, which was so unlike mine; I mocked at mine, and called it fate. I was on the point of turning from her with a bow--and a furnace in my breast--when she spoke.
"There is a late rose lingering there," she said, a slight tremor in her voice. "I cannot reach it. Will you pluck it for me, M. de Berault?"