The Price He Paid — page 297: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

258 THE DUEL. “Of the two shots, one only could have proved fatal,” said Brunnow’s second, meaningly. The colonel nodded. “T saw it too. Raven averted his pistol at the last moment. Strange!” The three men looked at each other in silence. They began to divine for what reasons this duel had been provoked; but none gave utterance to his thoughts. They felt that at yonder spot, where the adversary knelt by the side of his fallen foe,a scene was being enacted which had nothing in common with the ordinary circumstances of a duel; and, respecting the young doctor’s request, they re- mained reverentially at a distance. Brunnow had passed one arm round the wounded man, whose head lay on his breast, and supported him, while with the other hand he pressed the handkerchief to the bleeding part. Whether it were the pain of this touch, or the bitter cry “ Arno!” which brought him back to consciousness, Raven opened his eyes and made a faint, depreca- tory gesture. | | “Let that be,” he said. “You aimed well. I was sure of it.” ) “Arno, why have you done this thing to me?” groaned Brunnow. “Must it be my hand, none but mine? Oh! I see now, I understand why you drove me to it.” There was such anguish in his tone that it affected even the dying man. He tried to hold out his hand to the speaker. “Forgive me, Rudolph,” he said, but half audibly. -“Do not reproach yourself. I thank you.” His voice forsook him, but with a supreme effort he raised himself, and his roving eyes seemed to search four something in the distance. Brunnow supported him, striving with mortal anxiety to stem the flow of blood, the red life-stream which his own hand had let loose; yet his science told him that here no exertions could avail to succor or to save. Suddenly the sun broke through the vail of mist. Yonder, on the heights, stood the castle, illumined (E(ay Anil ovevo KS (Co)