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 He looked up at me as he sank down dying on the stones.

A strange shadowy smile flickered over his mouth.

"You were revenged—before," he said slowly, each word drawn feebly with his breath. "Did you not know? She betrayed me last autumn to the Prussians; she had a lover amongst them greater than I."

A rush of blood choked his voice: he lay silent, leaning upon one hand. The flames shone upon his face, the smoke drove over us, the little lilac tree blew in the breeze, the birds murmured to their young ones.

Then all at once the street grew full of men. They were his own soldiery. They rushed on me to avenge his death. With the last effort of life in him he raised himself and signed them back.

"Do not touch him," he cried aloud to them. "It was I who injured him: I fall in fair fight."

Even as he spoke a shudder shook him, and he died.

His head was on the stones; his hair was soaked with the blood that had already been shed there; a grey pallor stole over his face; and yet even then he was still beautiful.

The lilac blossoms, loosened by the driving Rh