At the very moment the commander got up to leave the tavern the chevalier
had run out of the mansion at the top of his speed. It was not that he
had entirely lost his courage, for had he found it impossible to avoid
his assailant it is probable that he would have regained the audacity
which had led him to draw his sword. But he was a novice in the use of
arms, had not reached full physical development, and felt that the
chances were so much against him that he would only have faced the
encounter if there were no possible way of escape. On leaving the house
he had turned quickly into the rue Git-le-Coeur; but on hearing the door
close behind his pursuer he disappeared down the narrow and crooked rue
de l'Hirondelle, hoping to throw the Duc de Vitry off the scent. The
duke, however, though for a moment in doubt, was guided by the sound of
the flying footsteps. The chevalier, still trying to send him off on a
false trail, turned to the right, and so regained the upper end of the
rue Saint-Andre, and ran along it as far as the church, the site of which
is occupied by the square of the same name to-day. Here he thought he
would be safe, for, as the church was being restored and enlarged, heaps
of stone stood all round the old pile. He glided in among these, and
twice heard Vitry searching quite close to him, and each time stood on
guard expecting an onslaught. This marching and counter-marching lasted
for some minutes; the chevalier began to hope he had escaped the danger,
and eagerly waited for the moment when the moon which had broken through
the clouds should again withdraw behind them, in order to steal into some
of the adjacent streets under cover of the darkness. Suddenly a shadow
rose before him and a threatening voice cried--

"Have I caught you at last, you coward?"

The danger in which the chevalier stood awoke in him a flickering energy,
a feverish courage, and he crossed blades with his assailant. A strange