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 family I'm to be? What would she say of me if I refused him? No; by Heaven, I'll cut his throat."

"He hasn't chosen pistols, then, sir?" I asked next.

"Indeed, and he has."

I didn't want to hear this, for a duel with pistols looked like to be the death of one of them. But before I could say any thing he was rambling on again.

"If it pleases God that I'm killed," said he, "you will send the letter that I'm writing to the Baroness de Moncy at the Hôtel Chatam. My clothes you may keep, Hildebrand. Ye've been a good man to me, and I'll not forget to say so on paper."

"I do hope it won't be as bad as that, sir," said I.

"’Tis as God wishes," replied he, pious like, "and I don't forget I was born a Catholic, though I'm no credit to my religion."

"May I ask where you're to meet him, sir?" said I, trying to turn him from thinking of it.

"In the garden of a house at Vincennes, at six o'clock," he answered. "We'll be private there, and no police to interrupt. You'll not forget to wake me at five?"

I promised that I would not, and he sat down to his desk in his shirt-sleeves and wrote two letters. One he addressed to the Baroness de Moncy; the other was a character for me, and I couldn't have had a better one, not if I'd been the angel Gabriel. It made me queer to read it though, for all said and