"I expected to be with you before this," he said courteously, "but I have
been detained. First, Mademoiselle, by some of your friends, who were
reluctant to part with me; then by some of your enemies, who, finding me
in no handsome case, took me for a Huguenot escaped from the river, and
drove me to shifts to get clear of them. However, now I am come, I have
news."
"News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could hardly be good news.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville," he answered. "I have little
doubt that I shall be able to produce him this evening, and so to satisfy
one of your scruples. And as I trust that this good father," he went on,
turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking with the sneer from which he
seldom refrained, Catholic as he was, when he mentioned a priest, "has by
this time succeeded in removing the other, and persuading you to accept
his ministrations--"
"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 passion.
"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 passing. 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 assault, 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.