“Indeed, Monseigneur, you are right, but I doubt me the duel will needs be fought.”      

       “Have I not already said that it shall not be fought?”      

       Again I shrugged my shoulders. Mazarin grew tiresome with his repetitions.     

       “How can it be avoided, your Eminence?”      

       “Ah, Monsieur, that is your affair.”      

       “My affair?”      

       “Assuredly. 'T was through your evil agency he was dragged into this business, and through your agency he must be extricated from it.”      

       “Your Eminence jests!”      

       “Undoubtedly,—'t is a jesting matter,” he answered with terrible irony. “Oh, I jest! Per Dio! yes. But I'll carry my jest so far as to have you hanged if this duel be fought—aye, whether my nephew suffers hurt or not. Now, sir, you know what fate awaits you; fight it—turn it aside—I have shown you the way. The door, M. de Luynes.”      

  

       CHAPTER III. THE FIGHT IN THE HORSE-MARKET     

       I let him go without a word. There was that in his voice, in his eye, and in the gesture wherewith he bade me hold the door for him, that cleared my mind of any doubts touching the irrevocable character of his determination. To plead was never an accomplishment of mine; to argue, I saw, would be to waste the Cardinal's time to no purpose.     

       And so I let him go,—and my curse with him,—and from my window I watched his coach drive away in the drizzling rain, scattering the crowd of awe-stricken loiterers who had collected at the rumour of his presence.     

       With a fervent prayer that his patron saint, the devil, might see fit to overset his coach and break his neck before he reached the Palace, I turned from the window, and called Michelot.     

       He was quick to answer my summons, bringing me the frugal measure of bread and wine wherewith it was my custom to break my fast. Then, whilst I munched my crust, I strode to and 

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