"With her own lips?"
Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "With her own lips, if you will," he said. And then, advancing a step and addressing her, with unusual gravity, "Mademoiselle de Vrillac," he said, "you hear what this gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to confirm what I have said?"
She did not answer, and in the intense silence which held the room in its freezing grasp a woman choked, another broke into weeping. The colour ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men fidgeted on their feet.
Count Hannibal looked round, his head high. "There is no call for tears," he said; and whether he spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness was known only to himself. "Mademoiselle is in no hurry--and rightly--to answer a question so momentous. Under the pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word; the more reason that, now the time has come to redeem it, she should do so at leisure and after thought. Since she gave her promise, Monsieur, she has had more than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment. But she is a Vrillac, and I know that nothing is farther from her thoughts."
He was silent a moment; and then, "Mademoiselle," he said, "I would not hurry you."
Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved. "I am--willing," she whispered. And a fluttering sigh, of relief, of pity, of God knows what, filled the room.
"You are satisfied, M. La Tribe?"
"I do not--"
"Man!" With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hannibal dropped the mask. In two strides he was at the minister's side, his hand gripped his shoulder; his face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will you play with lives?" he hissed. "If you do not value your own, have you no thought of others? Of these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If she will save them, will not you?"
"My own I do not value."
"Curse your own!" Tavannes cried in furious scorn. And he shook the other to and fro. "Who thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will you give them to the butcher?"
"My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of himself, "if she be willing--"
"She is willing."
"I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And without her consent--"
"She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle--"
She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before her, seeing nothing.
"I am willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it must be."
He did not answer.
"If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a heavy sigh. And her chin dropped on her breast. Then, abruptly, suddenly--it was a strange thing to see--she looked up. A change as complete as the change which had come over Count Hannibal a minute before came over her. She sprang to his side; she clutched his arm and devoured his face with her eyes. "You are not deceiving me?" she cried. "You have Tignonville below? You--oh, no, no!" And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have not! You are deceiving me! He has escaped, and you have lied to me!"
"I?"
"Yes, you have lied to me!" It was the last fierce flicker of hope when hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw that floated before the eyes.
He laughed harshly. "You will be my wife in five minutes," he said, "and you give me the lie? A week, and you will know me better! A month, and--but we will talk of that another time. For the present," he continued, turning to La Tribe, "do you, sir, tell her that the gentleman is below. Perhaps she will believe you. For you know him."
La Tribe looked at her sorrowfully; his heart bled for her. "I have seen M. de Tignonville," he said. "And M. le Comte says truly. He is in the same case with ourselves, a prisoner."
"You have seen him?" she wailed.
"I left him in the room below, when I mounted the stairs."
Count Hannibal laughed, the grim mocking laugh which seemed to revel in the pain it inflicted.
"Will you have him for a witness?" he cried. "There could not be a better, for he will not forget. Shall I fetch him?"
She bowed her head, shivering. "Spare me that," she said. And she pressed her hands to her eyes while an uncontrollable shudder passed over her frame. Then she stepped forward: "I am ready," she whispered. "Do with me as you will!"
* * * * *
When they had all gone out and closed the door behind them, and the two whom the minister had joined were left together, Count Hannibal continued for a time to pace the room, his hands clasped at his back, and his head sunk somewhat on his chest. His thoughts appeared to run in a new channel, and one, strange to say, widely diverted from his bride and from that which he had just done. For he did not look her way, or, for a time, speak to her. He stood once to snuff a candle, doing it with an absent face: and once to look, but still absently, and as if he read no word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink still wet, upon the table. After each of these interruptions he resumed his steady pacing to and fro, to and fro, nor did his eye wander once in the direction of her chair.
And she waited. The conflict of emotions, the strife between hope and fear, the final defeat had stunned her; had left her exhausted, almost apathetic. Yet not quite, nor wholly. For when in his walk he came a little nearer to her, a chill perspiration broke out on her brow, and shudderings crept over her; and when he passed farther from her--and then only, it seemed--she breathed again. But the change lay beneath the surface, and cheated the eye. Into her attitude, as she sat, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes fixed, came no apparent change or shadow of movement.
Suddenly, with a dull shock, she became aware that he was speaking.
"There was need of haste," he said, his tone strangely low and free from emotion, "for I am under bond to leave Paris to-morrow for Angers, whither I bear letters from the King. And as matters stood, there was no one with whom I could leave you. I trust Bigot; he is faithful, and you may trust him, Madame, fair or foul! But he is not quick-witted. Badelon, also, you may trust. Bear it in mind. Your woman Javette is not faithful; but as her life is guaranteed she must stay with us until she can be securely placed. Indeed, I must take all with me--with one exception--for the priests and monks rule Paris, and they do not love me, nor would spare aught at my word."
He was silent a few moments. Then he resumed in the same tone, "You ought to know how we, Tavannes, stand. It is by Monsieur and the Queen- Mother; and _contra_ the Guises. We have all been in this matter; but the latter push and we are pushed, and the old crack will reopen. As it is, I cannot answer for much beyond the reach of my arm. Therefore, we take all with us except M. de Tignonville, who desires to be conducted to the Arsenal."
She had begun to listen with averted eyes. But as he continued to speak surprise awoke in her, and something stronger than surprise--amazement, stupefaction. Slowly her eyes came to him, and when he ceased to speak--
"Why do you tell me these things?" she muttered, her dry lips framing the words with difficulty.
"Because it behoves you to know them," he answered, thoughtfully tapping the table. "I have no one, save my brother, whom I can trust."
She would not ask him why he trusted her, nor why he thought he could trust her. For a moment or two she watched him, while he, with his eyes lowered, stood in deep thought. At last he looked up and his eyes met hers.
"Come!" he said abruptly, and in a different tone, "we must end this! Is it to be a kiss or a blow between us?"
She rose, though her knees shook under her; and they stood face to face, her face white as paper.
"What--do you mean?"