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"I was thinking of my first theft an apple from my brother's plate," said Dubarre, with a dry smile. "You?" "I, of my first lie." "That apple was the sweetest fruit I ever tasted." "And I took the penalty of the lie, but I had no sorrow." Again there was silence. "Now?" asked Villiard, after an hour had passed. "I am ready." They came to the table. "Shall we bind our eyes?" asked Dubarre.
Dubarre snatched it from the wall, and hastening to him held it to his lips: but the warm sparkle of the rubies fell on eyes that were cold as frosted glass. Dubarre saw that he was dead. "Because the woman loved him!" he said, gazing curiously at the dead man. He turned, went to the door and opened it, for his breath choked him. All was still on the wooded heights and in the wide valley.
She smiled, and said, "That is Mademoiselle Dorothee; she went, this evening, to see the King sup in public, and to-morrow she is to be taken to the hunt. You are surprised to find me so well informed, but I know a great deal more about her. She was brought here by a Gascon, named Dubarre or Dubarri, who is the greatest scoundrel in France.
"I do not know the glasses that hold the poison." "Nor I the bottle that held it. I will turn my back, and do you change about the glasses." Villiard turned his face towards the timepiece on the wall. As he did so it began to strike a clear, silvery chime: "One! two! three !" Before it had finished striking both men were facing the glasses again. "Take one," said Dubarre.
The ticking of a huge, old-fashioned repeating-watch on the wall was in unison with these. Dubarre rose from the table, threw himself upon the little pile of otter-skins, and lay watching Villiard and mechanically studying the little room.
The glasses lay straggling along the table, emptied of death and life. All at once a horrible pallor spread over the face of Villiard, and his head jerked forward. He grasped the table with both hands, twitching and trembling. His eyes stared wildly at Dubarre, to whose face the flush of wine had come, whose look was now maliciously triumphant. Villiard had drunk both glasses of the poison!
They were now in a room alone in the forest of St. Sebastian. Both were quiet, and both knew that the end of their feud was near. Going to a cupboard Dubarre brought out four glasses and put them on the table. Then from two bottles he poured out what looked like red wine, two glasses from each bottle. Putting the bottles back he returned to the table. "Do you dare to drink with me?"
Villiard took the one nearest himself. Dubarre took one also. Without a word they lifted the glasses and drank. "Again," said Dubarre. "You choose," responded Villiard. Dubarre lifted the one nearest himself, and Villiard picked up the other. Raising their glasses again, they bowed to each other and drank. The watch struck twelve, and stopped its silvery chiming.
That night he might have been seen feeling about the grass in a moon-lit garden. At last he put something in his pocket with a quick, harsh chuckle of satisfaction. It was a little black bottle with a well-worn cork. They met at last, Dubarre, and Villiard, the man who had stolen from him the woman he loved. Both had wronged the woman, but Villiard most, for he had let her die because of jealousy.
There was a painful humour in the association. He smiled, then turned his head away, for old memories flashed through his brain he had been an acolyte once; he had served at the altar. Suddenly Dubarre rose, took the glasses from the shelf and placed them in the middle of the table the death's head for the feast.
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