Paul sprang up, but supported himself on the back of the chair, without again sitting down upon it. “He sat up all night. At day-break he came into my room and found me up--I had not gone to bed. As to you poor child, unconscious of the passions and miseries of this life, you were quietly sleeping.”
“Your father bent slowly over you, supporting himself by the wall, and looking sorrowfully upon you: ‘Louis,’ said he to me, in a hollow voice, ‘should I be killed, and which may happen, wo to this child! You will deliver him with this letter to Field, my valet de chambre, whom I have charged to conduct him to Selkirk, in Scotland, there to leave him in sure hands. When he is twenty-five years old, he will bring you the other half of this gold coin, and will ask you to reveal to him the secret of his birth. You will communicate it; for then, perhaps, his mother will be alone and isolated. As to these papers which prove his birth, you will not deliver them to him, until after the death of the Marquis d’Auray. Now I have said all that is necessary, let us go, for it is the appointed hour. He then leaned over your bed, bent down toward you, and although he was a man of fortitude, as I have told you, I saw a tear fall upon your cheek.”
“Proceed,” said Paul, in a voice choked by emotion.
“The rendezvous was in one of the avenues of the park, about a hundred paces from this house. When we reached the place, we found the marquis there, he had been waiting for us some minutes. Near him upon a bank were pistols ready loaded. The adversaries bowed to each other without exchanging a word. The marquis pointed to the weapons--they each took one, and then, according to the terms which had been agreed upon, as your father had told me, they placed themselves, mute and gloomily, at the distance of thirty paces, and then began to walk towards each other. Oh! it was a moment ef agony for me, I can assure you,” rejoined the old man, almost as much moved as if the scene were then actually passing before him, “when I saw the distance gradually diminishing between these two men. When they were only about ten paces, the marquis stopped and fired. I looked at your father; not a muscle of his face was moved, so that I thought him safe and unhurt. He continued to walk on till he came close to the marquis, and then placing the muzzle of the pistol to his heart--”