"It is nothing worse than a headache," I answered carelessly.
"I hope your nerves are not unstrung. You will need a clear head to-day unless I have read things wrongly."
"What next?" I felt that nothing which could happen now would either interest or trouble me. I had lost the one thing which I desired, and life itself might go for aught I cared.
"I was at a house last night and heard something which you must know at once. It concerns you closely, and spells danger."
"What was it?" Feel interested I could not, feign it I would not.
"The Duke Sergius has resolved to force a quarrel upon you. He has some deadly grievance. I heard it incidentally, but Why, Count, what is the matter?"
He might well be astonished. The news was the one thing on earth that could have changed me, the one thing that might yet change everything. In an instant my lassitude and despair fell away like a cloak. My blood warmed, my heart beat fast, my cheeks glowed again, and life was worth living and risking. Even if I were destined to go straight to my death at the hands of the rival I hated, I should have a moment of real enjoyable life, while, if my hand were true and my skill what I believed it and I killed him I could not stay to think, but in my eager hope that the news might be true I plied Spernow with question after question, testing his story, till he might well have deemed me insane.
"Of all the gifts and riches of the earth that you could bring me, Spernow," I cried in my vehemence, "there is none I would have in preference to this news. By Heaven, man, but you have made me live again!"
