tion. Then the young man
left the theatre and Sir John returned to his seat in the balcony. The
words had been exchanged in such perfectly well modulated voices, and
with such an impassible expression of countenance on both sides, that
no one would have supposed that a quarrel had arisen between the two men
who had just greeted each other so courteously.

It happened to be the reception day of the minister of war. Roland
returned to his hotel, removed the traces of his journey, jumped into a
carriage, and a little before ten he was announced in the salon of the
citizen Carnot.

Two purposes took him there: in the first place, he had a verbal
communication to make to the minister of war from the First Consul; in
the second place, he hoped to find there the two witnesses he was in
need of to arrange his meeting with Sir John.

Everything happened as Roland had hoped. He gave the minister of war all
the details of the crossing of the Mont Saint-Bernard and the situation
of the army; and he himself found the two friends of whom he was in
search. A few words sufficed to let them know what he wished; soldiers
are particularly open to such confidences.

Roland spoke of a grave insult, the nature of which must remain a secret
even to his seconds. He declared that he was the offended party, and
claimed the choice of weapons and mode of fighting--advantages which
belong to the challenger.

The young fellows agreed to present themselves to Sir John the following
morning at the Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de Richelieu, at nine o'clock, and
make the necessary arrangements with Sir John's seconds. After that they
would join Roland at the Hotel de Paris in the same street.

Roland returned to his room at eleven that evening, wrote for about an
hour, then went to bed and to sleep.

At half-past nine the next morning his friends came to him. They had
just left Sir John. He admitted all Roland's contentions; declared that
he would not discuss any of the arrangements; adding that if Roland
regarded himself as the injured party, it was for him to dictate the
conditions. To their remark that they had hoped to discuss such matters
with two of his friends and not with himself, he replied that he knew no
one in Paris intimately enough to ask their assistance in such a matter,
and that he hoped, once on the ground, that one of Roland's seconds
would consent to act in his behalf. The two officers were agreed that
Lord Tanlay had conducted himsel