the girl tottered out too. With ashy lips and wild,
scared eyes, she surrendered to a dreadful curiosity. She had also
a vague notion of rushing, if need be, between Lieutenant Feraud and
death.

The deaf gardener, utterly unconscious of approaching footsteps, went
on watering his flowers till Lieutenant Feraud thumped him on the back.
Beholding suddenly an infuriated man, flourishing a big sabre, the old
chap, trembling in all his limbs, dropped the watering pot. At once
Lieutenant Feraud kicked it away with great animosity; then seizing the
gardener by the throat, backed him against a tree and held him there
shouting in his ear:

"Stay here and look on. You understand you've got to look on. Don't dare
budge from the spot."

Lieutenant D'Hubert, coming slowly down the walk, unclasped his dolman
with undisguised reluctance. Even then, with his hand already on his
sword, he hesitated to draw, till a roar "_En garde, fichtre!_ What do
you think you came here for?" and the rush of his adversary forced him
to put himself as quickly as possible in a posture of defence.

The angry clash of arms filled that prim garden, which hitherto had
known no more warlike sound than the click of clipping shears; and
presently the upper part of an old lady's body was projected out of
a window upstairs. She flung her arms above her white cap, and began
scolding in a thin, cracked voice. The gardener remained glued to the
tree looking on, his toothless mouth open in idiotic astonishment, and
a little farther up the walk the pretty girl, as if held by a spell,
ran to and fro on a small grass plot, wringing her hands and muttering
crazily. She did not rush between the combatants. The onslaughts of
Lieutenant Feraud were so fierce that her heart failed her.

Lieutenant D'Hubert, his faculties concentrated upon defence, needed all
his skill and science of the sword to stop the rushes of his adversary.
Twice already he had had to break ground.

[Illustration: 028.jpg "The angry clash of arms filled that prim
garden"]

It bothered him to feel his foothold made insecure by the round dry
gravel of the path rolling under the hard soles of his boots. This was
most unsuitable ground, he thought, keeping a watchful, narrowed
gaze shaded by long eyelashes upon the fiery staring eyeballs of his
thick-set adversary. This absurd affair would ruin his reputation of a
sensible, steady, promising young officer. It would damage, at any rate,
his immed