, and I had a scratch
or two, and had lost my horse; and my other poor fellow was dead as a
herring. But, speaking for myself, I would have spent half the blood in
my body to purchase the feeling with which I turned back to speak to M.
de Cocheforet and his sister. Mademoiselle had dismounted, and with her
face averted and her mask pushed on one side, was openly weeping.
Her brother, who had faithfully kept his place by the ford from the
beginning of the fight to the end, met me with raised eyebrows and a
peculiar smile.

'Acknowledge my virtue,' he said airily. 'I am here, M. de Berault;
which is more than can be said of the two gentlemen who have just ridden
off.'

'Yes,' I answered with a touch of bitterness. 'I wish that they had not
shot my poor man before they went.'

He shrugged his shoulders.

'They were my friends,' he said. 'You must not expect me to blame them.
But that is not all, M. de Berault.'

'No,' I said, wiping my sword. 'There is this gentleman in the mask.'
And I turned to go towards him.

'M. de Berault!' Cocheforet called after me, his tone strained and
abrupt.

I stood. 'Pardon?' I said, turning.

'That gentleman?' he said, hesitating and looking at me doubtfully.
'Have you considered what will happen to him if you give him up to the
authorities?'

'Who is he?' I asked sharply.

'That is rather a delicate question,' he answered frowning.

'Not for me,' I replied brutally, 'since he is in my power. If he will
take off his mask I shall know better what I intend to do with him.'

The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and his fair hair, stained
with dust, hung in curls on his shoulders. He was a tall man, of a
slender, handsome presence, and, though his dress was plain and almost
rough, I espied a splendid jewel on his hand, and fancied that I
detected other signs of high quality. He still lay against the bank in a
half-swooning condition, and seemed unconscious of my scrutiny.

'Should I know him if he unmasked?' I said suddenly, a new idea in my
head.

'You would,' M. de Cocheforet answered.

'And?'

'It would be bad for everyone.'

'Ho! ho!' I replied softly, looking hard first at my old prisoner, and
then at my new one. 'Then--what do you wish me to do?'

'Leave him here!' M. de Cocheforet answered, his face flushed, the pulse
in his cheek beating.

I had known him for a man of perfect honour before, and trusted him. But
this evident earnest anxiety on behalf of hi