Page:Chesterton - The Wisdom of Father Brown.djvu/91

THE DUEL OF DR. HIRSCH of his colleagues by the wall, and repeated them in a low voice.

"Yes, they will meet now, after all!" "They will never meet," said Father Brown. "Hirsch was right when he said that in such an affair the principals must not meet. Have you read a queer psychological story by, of two persons who so perpetually missed meeting each other by accident that they began to feel quite frightened of each other, and think it was fate? This is something of the kind, but more curious."

"There are people in Paris who will cure them of such morbid fancies," said Valognes vindictively. "They will jolly well have to meet if we capture them and force them to fight."

"They will not meet on the Day of Judgment," said the priest. "If God Almighty held the truncheon of the lists, if St. Michael blew the trumpet for the swords to cross—even then, if one of them stood ready, the other would not come."

"Oh, what does all this mysticism mean?" cried the Duc de Valognes, impatiently; "why on earth shouldn't they meet like other people?"

"They are the opposite of each other," said Father Brown, with a queer kind of smile. "They contradict each other. They cancel out, so to speak."

He continued to gaze at the darkening trees 77