He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and in a voice that choked with anger he delivered his reply.
"To you, sir, who seem bred in camps and reared in guard-rooms, the fulness of this insult offered me by Gian Maria may not be apparent.

It may not be yours to perceive that the very contact of that letter soiled my hands, that it shamed me unutterably to think that that loutish Duke should have deemed me a target for such a shaft.

It were idle, therefore, to seek to make you understand how little I could bear to submit to the further shame of allowing another to see the affront that I was powerless to avenge.

I did, sir, with that letter the only thing conceivable.

I crumpled it in my hand and cast it from me, just as I sought to cast its contents from my mind.