San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-03-18

up I'd Hfo epeaRor, ana ueAI6 pint . oS--r
in the face with his open hand that
echoed all around the room like pistol
shot,
Such a commencement could have but
one result. The prehminaries Of q meet
ing were soon adjusted. and next morn
ing the redoubtable Capt. Du Val, one of
the best swordsmen In the whole south
of France, was borne home SPECIFICS
and desperately wounded from the last
duel that he was ever to fight.
81 knew from the very first how it
would be-" said Du Walls second, telling
the story that evening TO his friends at
the club. when my man stepped for
ward the Transylvanian gave him one
Iook-such a look!-just the way that
lion tanner last year used to look at his
beasts. 1t made me tingle all over,
know that. Poor Du Val seemed to feel
it too, for I saw his color change and
his hand shake fancy his hand shalzingD,
and then l knew that Keretsenyi had
him. So he had, sure enough, for they
had hardly been at it three minutes
when Du Val, for the first time in his
life l should think, left his guard open
for an instant, and the next moment !
saw him lying at my feet ali over blood.
He'll never fight again, poor fellowl for
his right arm is crippled for life"
But this duel was fated to have more
important results than the spelling of
Capt. Du Vals workmanship. Just out
of the town lived an old Gascon gentle
man, M. de la Roche, with a pedigree as
long as his purse was short, whose one
regret in life was the loss of the estates
of which his family had been deprived
by an unfortunate accident known to
history as the French Revolution. His ia
vorite nephew having been killed in
duel by Du Val the old man was nat
urally delighted to see the bully punish
ed in his turn, and lost no time in call
ing upon Keretsenyi to congratulate him.
The prince received him courteously, re-
turned his visit, and finding his hosts
daughter Madeleine one of the prettiest
girls that he had ever seen, fell in love
with her, or at least appeared to do so,
on the spot.
Nothing could be more fattering to a
simple, inexperienced girl, utterly ignor-
ant of the world and only just freed from
the prison of a convent school, than this
homage from man who had the whole
fashionable world of Marseilles at his
feet; for in France-and in most other
countries too, for that matter-any one
who has the reputation of being very
rich and very wicked, with the addi-
tional merit of having murdered a man
either in the ceremonious form of duel
or in the simpler and more usual way, is
certain to achieve an immense popular
ity; and Prince Keretsenyi received so
much attention from the local beauties
that had he been Turk or Mormon
he might have taken away with him
wives enough to stock an entire harem.
1t was true that in her inmost heart
Madeleine felt an instructive shrinking
from this mysterious and terrible sutton,
who, when they first met, had darted at
her look of fierce and hungry admira-
ton which scared her with sudden and
CHASTITY memory of frightful picture
that she had once seen in her childhood,
where a wolf, standing over helpless
child in the SNOW, was just about to bury
it's cruel fangs in the infants throat. 1t
was also true that she had had her own
dreams of ideal bliss, and that her part
ner in those dreams wore not the tower
ing form and tiger like beauty Of Keret-
senyi, but the likeness of the bright
haired boy who had been the chosen
playmate of her childhood. But her
father would not hear word of Henri
de Mortemart, and of course her father
must know best.
This last consideration, combined with
Keretsenyi's extraordinary personal
beauty, the splendid presents which he
was always making her. his renOwn as
the oonqueror of the most dreaded and
formidable duelist in the whole district,
and, above all, the weird, indefnable
fascination which seemed to attach it
self to everything that he did or said,
was strong enough to stifie in Made
leine's heart the warning instinct which
babe her beware OF this i'll omened union;
and when once the prince had spoken
oat, old De Ia Roche-who would gladly
have sold his own soul Ito say nothing of
his daughter) for 1.-THE Of the sum
which Kerctsenyi Offered to settle on his
bride-took good care that there should
be no undue delay in the celebration of
the marriage.
Thus it came to pass that one evening
in the early autumn of that year two
gosSips met on the broad white pave
ment OF the Cannebiere, and one of them
said 70 the other: