It is evening. Rose, Trudaine and
Lomaque are seated together on the bench that overlooks the
windings of the Seine. The old familiar scene spreads before
them, beautiful as ever--unchanged, as if it was but yesterday
since they had all looked on it for the last time.
They talk together seriously and in low voices. The same
recollections fill their hearts--recollections which they refrain
from acknowledging, but the influence of which each knows by
instinct that the other partakes. Sometimes one leads the
conversation, sometimes another; but whoever speaks, the topic
chosen is always, as if by common consent, a topic connected with
the future.
The evening darkens in, and Rose is the first to rise from the
bench. A secret look of intelligence passes between her and her
brother, and then she speaks to Lomaque.
"Will you follow me into the house," she asks, "with as little
delay as possible? I have something that I very much wish to show
you."
Her brother waits till she is out of hearing, then inquires
anxiously what has happened at Paris since the night when he and
Rose left it.
"Your sister is free," Lomaque answers.
"The duel took place, then?"
"The same day. They were both to fire together. The second of his
adversary asserts that he was paralyzed with terror; his own
second declares that he was resolved, however he might have
lived, to confront death courageously by offering his life at the
first fire to the man whom he had injured.
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