"I am going to show you one," Tavannes retorted. "If the gibbets are not
in place by sunrise, I shall hang you from this window. That is one way
out; and you'll be wise to take the other! For the rest and for your
comfort, if I have no letters, it is not always to paper that the King
commits his inmost heart."
The magistrate bowed. He quaked, he doubted, but he had no choice.
"My lord," he said, "I put myself in your hands. It shall be done,
certainly it shall be done. But, but--" and shaking his head in
foreboding, he turned to the door. At the last moment, when he was
within a pace of it, the Countess rose impulsively to her feet. She
called to him.
"M. le Prevot, a minute, if you please," she said. "There may be trouble
to-morrow; your daughter may be in some peril. You will do well to send
her to me. My lord"--and on the word her voice, uncertain before, grew
full and steady--"will see that I am safe. And she will be safe with
me."
The Provost saw before him only a gracious lady, moved by a
thoughtfulness unusual in persons of her rank. He was at no pains to
explain the flame in her cheek, or the soft light which glowed in her
eyes, as she looked at him across her formidable husband. He was only
profoundly grateful--moved even to tears. Humbly thanking her, he
accepted her offer for his child, and withdrew wiping his eyes. When he
was gone, and the door had closed behind him, Tavannes turned to the
Countess, who still kept her feet.
"You are very confident this evening," he sneered. "Gibbets do not
frighten you, it seems, madame. Perhaps if you knew for whom the one
before the door is intended?"
She met his look with a searching gaze, and spoke with a ring of defiance
in her tone. "I do not believe it!" she said. "I do not believe it! You
who save Angers will not destroy him!" And then her woman's mood
changing, with courage and colour ebbing together, "Oh no, you will not!
You will not!" she wailed. And she dropped on her knees before him, and
holding up her clasped hands, "God will put it in your heart to spare
him--and me!"
He rose with a stifled oath, took two steps from her, and in a tone
hoarse and constrained, "Go!" he said. "Go, or sit! Do you hear,
Madame? You try my patience too far!"
But when she had gone his face was radiant. He had brought her, he had
brought all, to the point at which he aimed. To-morrow his triumph
awaited him. To-morrow he who had cast her down would raise her up.