hen he turned into the park
and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He
rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron
escutcheon with the butt of his riding-crop; and at length a
yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged
open the wicket.

"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.

"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a
gesture towards the house.

Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank God!" he muttered, and dismounted,
throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the
doorway.

He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind
his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's
direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He
was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had
unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his
dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the
pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him
sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the
place and the man had come.

"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up
the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet
him.

"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much
to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour
there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."

Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not
at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man
whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he
had seen succumb to an access of insane fury in the presence of
the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that
prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered
the chamber where retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered
every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly
streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish
blotches.

They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a
heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to
know it was there, in case of need.

"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal
more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."

This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in
his chair and eyed the marquis.

"T