It robs me of my vengeance.

Go! in God's name!" And we went; for there was no change, no promise of softening in his malignant aspect as he spoke; nor any as he stood and watched us draw off slowly from him.

We went one by one, each lingering after the other, striving, out of a natural desire to thank him, to break through that stern reserve.

But grim and unrelenting, a picture of scorn to the last, he saw us go.
My latest memory of that strange man--still fresh after a lapse of two and fifty years--is of a huge form towering in the gloom below the state canopy, the sunlight which poured in through the windows and flooded us, falling short of him; of a pair of fierce cross eyes, that seemed to glow as they covered us; of a lip that curled as in the enjoyment of some cruel jest.

And so I--and I think each of us four saw the last of Raoul de Mar, Vidame de Bezers, in this life.
He was a man whom we cannot judge by to-day's standard; for he was such an one in his vices and his virtues as the present day does not know; one who in his time did immense evil--and if his friends be believed, little good.