"I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden and unaccountable
impulse. And as she knelt, she shook her hair about her face to hide its
colour.
"Nay, Madame, but you will soil your fingers!" he said coldly.
"Permit me," she muttered half coherently. And though her fingers shook,
she pursued and performed her task.
When she rose he thanked her; and then the devil in the man, or the
Nemesis he had provoked when he took her by force from another--the
Nemesis of jealousy, drove him to spoil all.
"And for whose sake, Madame?" he added, with a jeer; "mine or M. de
Tignonville's?" And with a glance between jest and earnest, he tried to
read her thoughts.
She winced as if he had indeed struck her, and the hot colour fled her
cheeks.
"For his sake!" she said, with a shiver of pain. "That his life may be
spared!" And she stood back humbly, like a beaten dog. Though, indeed,
it was for the sake of Angers, in thankfulness for the past rather than
in any desperate hope of propitiating her husband, that she had done it!
Perhaps he would have withdrawn his words. But before he could answer,
the host, bowing to the floor, came to announce that all was ready, and
that the Provost of the City, for whom M. le Comte had sent, was in
waiting below.
"Let him come up!" Tavannes answered, grave and frowning. "And see you,
close the room, sirrah! My people will wait on us. Ah!" as the Provost,
a burly man, with a face framed for jollity, but now pale and long,
entered and approached him with many salutations. "How comes it, M. le
Prevot--you are the Prevot, are you not?"
"Yes, M. le Comte."
"How comes it that so great a crowd is permitted to meet in the streets?
And that at my entrance, though I come unannounced, I find half of the
city gathered together?"
The Provost stared. "Respect, M. le Comte," he said, "for His Majesty's
letters, of which you are the bearer, no doubt induced some to come
together."
"Who said I brought letters?"
"Who--?"
"Who said I brought letters?" Count Hannibal repeated in a strenuous
voice. And he ground his chair half about and faced the astonished
magistrate. "Who said I brought letters?"
"Why, my lord," the Provost stammered, "it was everywhere yesterday--"
"Yesterday?"
"Last night, at latest--that letters were coming from the King."
"By my hand?"
"By your lordship's hand--whose name is so well known here," the
magistrate added, in the hope of clearing the great man's brow.
Count Hannibal laughed darkly. "My hand will be better known by-and-by,"
he said. "See you, sirrah, there is some practice here. What is this
cry of Montsoreau that I hear?"