"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 God 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
assured--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!"
"Sirrah, you--"
"I can die. And you can no more, my lord!" the minister answered
bravely. "You have no threat can move me."
"I am not sure of that," Tavannes answered, more blandly. "But had you
listened to me and been less anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where no
danger is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics! Mademoiselle
is willing, and will tell you so."