rs this might be hailed as another
victory for the Paladin of the Third Estate; only himself could know the
extent and the bitternest of the failure.

M. d'Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.

"You are hurt!" he had cried stupidly.

"It is nothing," said La Tour d'Azyr. "A scratch." But his lip writhed,
and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.

D'Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen kerchief,
which he tore quickly into strips to improvise a bandage.

Still Andre-Louis continued to stand there, looking on as if bemused. He
continued so until Le Chapelier touched him on the arm. Then at last he
roused himself, sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor did
he address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground at
once.

As, with Le Chapelier, he was walking slowly and in silent dejection
towards the entrance of the Bois, where they had left their carriage,
they were passed by the caleche conveying La Tour d'Azyr and his
second--which had originally driven almost right up to the spot of the
encounter. The Marquis' wounded arm was carried in a sling improvised
from his companion's sword-belt. His sky-blue coat with three collars
had been buttoned over this, so that the right sleeve hung empty.
Otherwise, saving a certain pallor, he looked much his usual self.

And now you understand how it was that he was the first to return,
and that seeing him thus returning, apparently safe and sound, the two
ladies, intent upon preventing the encounter, should have assumed that
their worst fears were realized.

Mme. de Plougastel attempted to call out, but her voice refused its
office. She attempted to throw open the door of her own carriage; but
her fingers fumbled clumsily and ineffectively with the handle. And
meanwhile the caleche was slowly passing, La Tour d'Azyr's fine eyes
sombrely yet intently meeting her own anguished gaze. And then she
saw something else. M. d'Ormesson, leaning back again from the forward
inclination of his body to join his own to his companion's salutation of
the Countess, disclosed the empty right sleeve of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's
blue coat. More, the near side of the coat itself turned back from the
point near the throat where it was caught together by a single button,
revealed the slung arm beneath in its blood-sodden cambric sleeve.

Even now she feared to jump to the obvious conclusion--feared lest
perhaps the Mar