and his vacant place
filled up by a usurper. Do what I would, I could not torture him as
much as I myself had been tortured. That was a pity--death, sudden and
almost painless, seemed too good for him. I held up my hand in the half
light and watched it closely to see if it trembled ever so slightly.
No! it was steady as a rock--I felt I was sure of my aim. I would not
fire at his heart, I thought but just above it--for I had to remember
one thing--he must live long enough to recognize me before he died.
THAT was the sting I reserved for his last moments! The sick dreams
that had bewildered my brain when I was taken ill at the auberge
recurred to me. I remembered the lithe figure, so like Guido, that had
glided in the Indian canoe toward me and had plunged a dagger three
times in my heart? Had it not been realized? Had not Guido stabbed me
thrice?--in his theft of my wife's affections--in his contempt for my
little dead child--in his slanders on my name? Then why such foolish
notions of pity--of forgiveness, that were beginning to steal into my
mind? It was too late now for forgiveness--the very idea of it only
rose out of a silly sentimentalism awakened by Ferrari's allusion to
our young days--days for which, after all, he really cared nothing.
Meditating on all these things, I suppose I must have fallen by
imperceptible degrees into a doze which gradually deepened till it
became a profound and refreshing sleep. From this I was awakened by a
knocking at the door. I arose and admitted Vincenzo, who entered
bearing a tray of steaming coffee.

"Is it already so late?" I asked him.

"It wants a quarter to five," replied Vincenzo--then looking at me in
some surprise, he added, "Will not the eccellenza change his
evening-dress?"

I nodded in the affirmative--and while I drank my coffee my valet set
out a suit of rough tweed, such as I was accustomed to wear every day.
He then left me, and I quickly changed my attire, and while I did so I
considered carefully the position of affairs. Neither the Marquis
D'Avencourt nor Captain Freccia had ever known me personally when I was
Fabio Romani--nor was it at all probable that the two tavern companions
of Ferrari had ever seen me. A surgeon would be on the field--most
probably a stranger. Thinking over these points, I resolved on a bold
stroke--it was this--that when I turned to face Ferrari in the combat,
I would do so with uncovered eyes--I would abjure my spectacles
altogether