? Ah, I
would that you were my son! Let us have it out--all of it. I, too, have
had my share of sorrow. Let me hear, and tell it quietly. Then we can
talk."

Thus it came about that with a sense of relief Rene told his story of
failing fortunes, of their chateau in ruins, and of how, on his return
from Avignon, he had found his mother in a friendly farm refuge. He
told, too, with entire self-command of the tragedy in the papal city,
his vain pursuit of Carteaux, their flight to England, and how on the
voyage his mother had wrung from him the whole account of his father's
death.

"Does she know his name?" asked Schmidt.

"Carteaux? Yes. I should not have told it, but I did. She would have me
tell it."

"And that is all." For a little while the German, lighting his pipe,
walked up and down the room without a word. Then at last, sitting down,
he said: "Rene, what do you mean to do?"

"Kill him."

"Yes, of course," said Schmidt, coolly; "but--let us think a little. Do
you mean to shoot him as one would a mad dog?"

"Certainly; and why not?"

"You ask 'Why not?' Suppose you succeed? Of course you would have to
fly, leave your mother alone; or, to be honest with you, if you were
arrested, the death of this dog would be, as men would look at it, the
murder of an official of the French legation. You know the intensity of
party feeling here. You would be as sure to die by the gallows as any
common criminal; and--there again is the mother to make a man hesitate."

"That is all true; but what can I do, sir? Must I sit down and wait?"

"For the present, yes. Opinion will change. Time is the magician of
opportunities. The man will be here long. Wait. Go back to your work.
Say nothing. There are, of course, the ordinary ways--a quarrel, a
duel--"

"Yes, yes; anything--something--"

"Anything--something, yes; but what thing? You must not act rashly.
Leave it to me to think over; and promise me to do nothing rash--to do
nothing in fact just yet."

De Courval saw only too clearly that his friend was wiser than he. After
a moment of silence he said: "I give you my word, sir. And how can I
thank you?"

"By not thanking me, not a rare form of thanks. Now go to bed."

When alone, Schmidt said to himself: "Some day he will lose his head,
and then the tiger will leap. It was clear from what I saw, and who
could sit quiet and give it up? Not I. A duel? If this man I have
learned to love had Du Vallon's wrist of steel or mi