"my dear creature," said john bulmer, "i am now doubly persuaded that god entirely omitted what we term a sense of honor when he created the woman. i mean to kill this rapscallion, but i mean to kill him fairly." he unbolted the trap-door and immediately cazaio stood upon the roof, his sword drawn.
achille cazaio stared at the tranquil woman, and now his countenance was less that of a satyr than of a demon. "at four in the morning! i congratulate you, monsieur bulmaire," he said,—"oh, decidedly, i congratulate you."
"thank you," said john bulmer, sword in hand; "yes, we were married yesterday."
cazaio drew a pistol from his girdle and fired full in john bulmer's face; but the latter had fallen upon one knee, and the ball sped harmlessly above him.
"you are very careless with fire-arms," john bulmer lamented, "really, friend achille, if you are not more circumspect you will presently injure somebody, and will forever afterward be consumed with unavailing regret and compunctions. now let us get down to our affair."
they crossed blades in the moonlight, cazaio was in a disastrous condition; john bulmer's tolerant acceptance of any meanness that a cazaio might attempt, the vital shame of this new and baser failure before claire's very eyes, had made of cazaio a crazed beast. he slobbered little flecks of foam, clinging like hoar-frost to the tangled beard, and he breathed with shuddering inhalations, like a man in agony, the while that he charged with redoubling thrusts. the englishman appeared to be enjoying himself, discreetly; he chuckled as the other, cursing, shifted from tierce to quart, and he met the assault with a nice inevitableness. in all, each movement had the comely precision of finely adjusted clockwork, though at times john bulmer's face showed a spurt of amusement roused by the brigand's extravagancy of gesture and cazaio's contortions as he strove to pass the line of steel that flickered cannily between his sword and john bulmer's portly bosom.
then john bulmer, too, attacked. "for guiton!" said he, as his point slipped into cazaio's breast. john bulmer recoiled and lodged another thrust in the brigand's throat. "for attempting to assassinate me!" his foot stamped as his sword ran deep into cazaio's belly. "for insulting my wife by thinking of her obscenely! you are a dead man, friend achille."
cazaio had dropped his sword, reeling as if drunken against the western battlement. "my comfort," he said, hoarsely, while one hand tore at his jetting throat—"my comfort is that i could not perish slain by a braver enemy." he moaned and stumbled backward. momentarily his knees gripped the low embrasure. then his feet flipped upward, convulsively, so that john bulmer saw the man's spurs glitter and twitch in the moonlight, and john bulmer heard a snapping and crackling and swishing among the poplars, and heard the heavy, unvibrant thud of cazaio's body upon the turf.
"may he find more mercy than he has merited," said john bulmer, "for the man had excellent traits. yes, in him the making of a very good swordsman was spoiled by that abominable boisrobert."
but claire had caught him by the shoulder. "look, jean!"
he turned toward the duardenez. a troop of horsemen was nearing. now they swept about the curve in the highway and at their head was de puysange, laughing terribly. the dragoons went by like a tumult in a sick man's dream, and the hugonet wing had screened them.
"then bellegarde is relieved," said john bulmer, "and your life, at least, is saved."
the girl stormed. "you—you abominable trickster! you would not be content with the keys of heaven if you had not got them by outwitting somebody! do you fancy i had never seen the duke of ormskirk's portrait? gaston sent me one six months ago."
"ah!" said john bulmer, very quietly. he took up the discarded scabbard, and he sheathed his sword without speaking.
presently he said, "you have been cognizant all along that i was the duke of ormskirk?"
"yes," she answered, promptly.
"and you married me, knowing that i was—god save the mark!—the great duke of ormskirk? knowing that you made what we must grossly term a brilliant match?"
"i married you because, in spite of jean bulmer, you had betrayed yourself to be a daring and a gallant gentleman,—and because, for a moment, i thought that i did not dislike the duke of ormskirk quite so much as i ought to."
he digested this.
"o jean bulmer," the girl said, "they tell me you were ever a fortunate man, but i consider you the unluckiest i know of. for always you are afraid to be yourself. sometimes you forget, and are just you—and then, ohé! you remember, and are only a sulky, fat old gentleman who is not you at all, somehow; so that at times i detest you, and at times i cannot thoroughly detest you. so that i played out the comedy, jean bulmer. i meant in the end to tell louis who you were, of course, and not let them hang you; but i never quite trusted you; and i never knew whether i detested you or no, at bottom, until last night."
"last night you left the safe inner tower to come to me—to save me at all hazards, or else to die with me—and for what reason, did you do this?"
"you are bullying me!" she wailed.
"and for what reason, did you do this?" he repeated, without any change of intonation.
"can you not guess?" she asked. "oh, because i am a fool!" she stated, very happily, for his arms were about her.
"eh, in that event—" said the duke of ormskirk. "look!" said he, with a deeper thrill of speech, "it is the dawn."
they turned hand in hand; and out of the east the sun came statelily, and a new day was upon them.
