She writhed in misery, thinking of it. What had she done? She could
hear afar off the sounds of the camp; an occasional outcry, a snatch of
laughter. And the cry and the laughter rang in her ears, a bitter
mockery. This summer camp, to what was it the prelude? This forbearance
on her husband's part, in what would it end? Were not the one and the
other cruel make-believes? Two days, and the men who laughed beside the
water would slay and torture with equal zest. A little, and the husband
who now chose to be generous would show himself in his true colours. And
it was for the sake of such as these that she had played the coward. That
she had laid up for herself endless remorse. That henceforth the cries
of the innocent would haunt her dreams.
Racked by such thoughts she did not hear his step, and it was his shadow
falling across her feet which first warned her of his presence. She
looked up, saw him, and involuntarily recoiled. Then, seeing the change
in his face-"Oh! Monsieur," she stammered, affrighted, her hand pressed to her side,
"I ask your pardon! You startled me!"
"So it seems," he answered. And he stood over her regarding her dryly.
"I am not quite--myself yet," she murmured. His look told her that her
start had betrayed her feelings.
Alas! the plan of taking a woman by force has drawbacks, and among others
this one: that he must be a sanguine husband who deems her heart his, and
a husband without jealousy, whose suspicions are not aroused by the
faintest flush or the lightest word. He knows that she is his
unwillingly, a victim, not a mistress; and behind every bush beside the
road and behind every mask in the crowd he espies a rival.
Moreover, where women are in question, who is always strong? Or who can
say how long he will pursue this plan or that? A man of sternest temper,
Count Hannibal had set out on a path of conduct carefully and
deliberately chosen; knowing--and he still knew--that if he abandoned it
he had little to hope, if the less to fear. But the proof of fidelity
which the Countess had just given him had blown to a white heat the
smouldering flame in his heart, and Madame St. Lo's gibes, which should
have fallen as cold water alike on his hopes and his passion, had but fed
the desire to know the best. For all that, he might not have spoken now,
if he had not caught her look of affright; strange as it sounds, that
look, which of all things should have silenced him and warned him that
the time was not yet, stung him out of patience. Suddenly the man in him
carried him away.