Part 25 (1/2)

”What is it?” she cried in a panic. ”What is it?”

”If Mademoiselle will return to her room?” one of the men said courteously.

”But--what is it?” She was frightened.

”If Mademoiselle--”

Then she turned without more and went back into the room, and the three followed, and her woman and Madame Carlat. She stood resting one hand on the table while Javette with shaking fingers lighted the candles. Then--

”Now, Monsieur,” she said in a hard voice, ”if you will tell me your business?”

”You do not know me?” The stranger's eyes dwelt kindly and pitifully on her.

She looked at him steadily, crus.h.i.+ng down the fears which knocked at her heart.

”No,” she said. ”And yet I think I have seen you.”

”You saw me a week last Sunday,” the stranger answered sorrowfully. ”My name is La Tribe. I preached that day, Mademoiselle, before the King of Navarre. I believe that you were there.”

For a moment she stared at him in silence, her lips parted. Then she laughed, a laugh which set the teeth on edge.

”Oh, he is clever!” she cried. ”He has the wit of the priests! Or the devil! But you come too late, Monsieur! You come too late! The bird has flown.”

”Mademoiselle--”

”I tell you the bird has flown!” she repeated vehemently. And her laugh of joyless triumph rang through the room. ”He is clever, but I have outwitted him! I have--”

She paused and stared about her wildly, struck by the silence; struck too by something solemn, something pitiful in the faces that were turned on her. And her lip began to quiver.

”What?” she muttered. ”Why do you look at me so? He has not”--she turned from one to another--”he has not been taken?”

”M. Tignonville?”

She nodded.

”He is below.”

”Ah!” she said.

They expected to see her break down, perhaps to see her fall. But she only groped blindly for a chair and sat. And for a moment there was silence in the room. It was the Huguenot minister who broke it in a tone formal and solemn.

”Listen, all present!” he said slowly. ”The ways of G.o.d are past finding out. For two days in the midst of great perils I have been preserved by His hand and fed by His bounty, and I am told that I shall live if, in this matter, I do the will of those who hold me in their power. But be a.s.sured--and hearken all,” he continued, lowering his voice to a sterner note. ”Rather than marry this woman to this man against her will--if indeed in His sight such marriage can be--rather than save my life by such base compliance, I will die not once but ten times! See. I am ready! I will make no defence!” And he opened his arms as if to welcome the stroke. ”If there be trickery here, if there has been practising below, where they told me this and that, it shall not avail! Until I hear from Mademoiselle's own lips that she is willing, I will not say over her so much as Yea, yea, or Nay, nay!”

”She is willing!”

La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker. It was Count Hannibal, who had entered a few seconds earlier, and had taken his stand within the door.

”She is willing!” Tavannes repeated quietly. And if, in this moment of the fruition of his schemes, he felt his triumph, he masked it under a face of sombre purpose. ”Do you doubt me, man?”

”From her own lips!” the other replied, undaunted--and few could say as much--by that harsh presence. ”From no other's!”