Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 50

"No!" she cried impulsively.

"No?" with a dubious smile, and a glance from one to the other. "Oh, I had hoped better things. But he still may? He still may. I am sure he may. In which case, Mademoiselle, your modesty must pardon me if I plead urgency, and fix the hour after supper this evening for the fulfilment of your promise."

She turned white to the lips. "After supper?" she gasped.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, this evening. Shall I say--at eight o'clock?"

In horror of the thing which menaced her, of the thing from which only two hours separated her, she could find no words but those which she had already used. The worst was upon her; worse than the worst could not befall her. "But he has not persuaded me!" she cried, clenching her hands in pa.s.sion. "He has not persuaded me!"

"Still he may, Mademoiselle."

"He will not!" she cried wildly. "He will not!"

The room was going round with her. The precipice yawned at her feet; its naked terrors turned her brain. She had been pushed nearer, and nearer, and nearer; struggle as she might she was on the verge. A mist rose before her eyes, and though they thought she listened she understood nothing of what was pa.s.sing. When she came to herself after the lapse of a minute, Count Hannibal was speaking.

"Permit him another trial," he was saying in a tone of bland irony. "A short time longer, Mademoiselle! One more a.s.sault, father! The weapons of the Church could not be better directed or to a more worthy object; and, successful, shall not fail of due recognition and an earthly reward."

And while she listened, half fainting, with a humming in her ears, he was gone. The door closed on him, and the three--Mademoiselle's woman had withdrawn when she opened to him--looked at one another. The girl parted her lips to speak, but she only smiled piteously; and it was M.

de Tignonville who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather relief than any other feeling.

"Come, all is not lost yet," he said briskly. "If I can escape from the house----"

"He knows you," she answered.

"What?"

"He knows you," Mademoiselle repeated in a tone almost apathetic. "I read it in his eyes. He knew you at once: and knew, too," she added bitterly, "that he had here under his hand one of the two things he required."

"Then why did he hide his knowledge?" the young man retorted sharply.

"Why?" she answered. "To induce me to waive the other condition in the hope of saving you. Oh!" she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, "he has the cunning of h.e.l.l, of the priests! You are no match for him, monsieur. Nor I; nor any of us. And"--with a gesture of despair--"he will be my master! He will break me to his will and to his hand! I shall be his! His, body and soul, body and soul!" she continued drearily, as she sank into a chair and, rocking herself to and fro, covered her face. "I shall be his! His till I die!"

The man's eyes burned, and the pulse in his temples beat wildly. "But you shall not," he exclaimed. "I may be no match for him in cunning, you say well. But I can kill him. And I will!" He paced up and down.

"I will!"

"You should have done it when he was here," she answered, half in scorn, half in earnest.

"It is not too late," he cried; and then he stopped, silenced by the opening door. It was Javette who entered.

They looked at her, and before she spoke were on their feet. Her face, white and eager, marking something besides fear, announced that she brought news. She closed the door behind her, and in a moment it was told.

"Monsieur can escape, if he is quick," she cried in a low tone; and they saw that she trembled with excitement. "They are at supper. But he must be quick! He must be quick!"

"Is not the door guarded!"

"It is, but----"

"And he knows! Your mistress says that he knows that I am here."

For a moment Javette looked startled. "It is possible," she muttered.

"But he has gone out."

Madame Carlat clapped her hands. "I heard the door close," she said, "three minutes ago."

"And if monsieur can reach the room in which he supped last night, the window that was broken is only blocked"--she swallowed once or twice in her excitement--"with something he can move. And then monsieur is in the street, where his cowl will protect him."

"But Count Hannibal's men?" he asked eagerly.

"They are eating in the lodge by the door."

"Ha! And they cannot see the other room from there?"

Javette nodded. Her tale told, she seemed to be unable to add a word.

Mademoiselle, who knew her for a craven, wondered that she had found courage either to note what she had or to bring the news. But as Providence had been so good to them as to put it into this woman's head to act as she had, it behoved them to use the opportunity--the last, the very last opportunity they might have.

She turned to Tignonville. "Oh, go!" she cried feverishly. "Go, I beg!

Go now, monsieur! The greatest kindness you can do me is to place yourself as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint colour, the flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glittered.

"Right, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for once. "I go! And do you be of good courage." He held her hand an instant, then, moving to the door, he opened it and listened. They all pressed behind him to hear.

A murmur of voices, low and distant, mounted the staircase and bore out the girl's tale; apart from this the house was silent. Tignonville cast a last look at Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture of farewell, glided a-tiptoe to the stairs and began to descend, his face hidden in his cowl. They watched him reach the angle of the staircase, they watched him vanish beyond it; and still they listened, looking at one another when a board creaked or the voices below were hushed for a moment.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DUEL.

At the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused. The droning Norman voices of the men on guard issued from an open door a few paces before him on the left. He caught a jest, the coa.r.s.e chuckling laughter which attended it, and the gurgle of applause which followed; and he knew that at any moment one of the men might step out and discover him.

Fortunately the door of the room with the shattered window was almost within reach of his hand on the right side of the pa.s.sage, and he stepped softly to it. He stood an instant hesitating, his hand on the latch; then, alarmed by a movement in the guard-room, as if some were rising, he pushed the door in a panic, slid into the room, and shut the door behind him. He was safe, and he had made no noise; but at the table, at supper, with his back to him and his face to the partly closed window, sat Count Hannibal!

The young man's heart stood still. For a long minute he gazed at the Count's back, spellbound and unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on without looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly he had entered so quietly that he had not been heard, or possibly his entrance was taken for that of a servant. In either case, there was a chance that he might retire after the same fas.h.i.+on; and he had actually raised the latch, and was drawing the door to him with infinite precaution, when Tavannes' voice struck him, as it were, in the face.

"Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignonville," he said, without looking round. "In your cowl you do not feel it, but it is otherwise with me."

The unfortunate Tignonville stood transfixed, glaring at the back of the other's head. For an instant he could not find his voice. At last "Curse you!" he hissed in a transport of rage. "Curse you! You did know, then? And she was right."

"If you mean that I expected you, to be sure, monsieur," Count Hannibal answered. "See, your place is laid. You will not feel the air from without there. The very becoming dress which you have adopted secures you from cold. But--do you not find it somewhat oppressive this summer weather?"

"Curse you!" the young man cried, trembling.

Tavannes turned and looked at him with a dark smile. "The curse may fall," he said, "but I fancy it will not be in consequence of your pet.i.tions, monsieur. And now, were it not better you played the man?"

"If I were armed," the other cried pa.s.sionately, "you would not insult me!"

"Sit down, sir, sit down," Count Hannibal answered sternly. "We will talk of that presently. In the meantime I have something to say to you. Will you not eat?"

But Tignonville would not.