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Updated: June 6, 2025
"I win!" Dubarre stood up. Then, leaning over the table towards the dying man, he added: "You let her die-well! Would you know the truth? She loved you always." Villiard gasped, and his look wandered vaguely along the opposite wall. Dubarre went on. "I played the game with you honestly, because because it was the greatest man could play. And I, too, sinned against her. Now die!
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.
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.
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 four glasses filled with the wine and laid them on a shelf against the wall, then began to put the table in order for their supper, and to take the pot from the fire. Dubarre noticed that just above where the glasses stood on the shelf a crucifix was hanging, and that red crystal sparkled in the hands and feet where the nails should be driven in.
Dubarre asked, nodding towards the glasses. "Two of the glasses have poison in them, two have good red wine only. We will move them about and then drink. Both may die, or only one of us." Villiard looked at the other with contracting, questioning eyes. "You would play that game with me?" he asked, in a mechanical voice. "It would give me great pleasure." The voice had a strange, ironical tone.
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 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.
The fire, and the wind, and the watch seemed the only living things besides themselves, perched there between heaven and earth. At length the meal was finished, and the two turned in their chairs towards the fire. There was no other light in the room, and on the faces of the two, still and cold, the flame played idly. "When?" said Dubarre at last. "Not yet," was the quiet reply.
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