CHAPTER VIII.
THE PARISIAN MATINS.
There are some statements for which it is impossible to be prepared; statements so strong and so startling that it is impossible to answer them except by action--by a blow.

And this of M.de Pavannes was one of these.

If there had been any one present, I think I should have given him the lie and drawn upon him.

But alone with him at midnight in the shadow near the bottom of the Rue des Fosses, with no witnesses, with every reason to feel friendly towards him, what was I to do?
As a fact, I did nothing.

I stood, silent and stupefied, waiting to hear more.