"Which way?" Tignonville asked impatiently. "Don't stand looking at me,
but--"
"Through this door!" Madame Carlat answered, hurrying to it.
He was following when the Countess stepped forward and interposed between
him and the door.
"Stay!" she cried; and there was not one who did not notice a new
decision in her voice, a new dignity in her bearing. "Stay, Monsieur, we
may be going too fast. To go out now and in that guise--may it not be to
incur greater peril than you incur here? I feel sure that you are in no
danger of your life at present. Therefore, why run the risk--"
"In no danger, Madame!" he cried, interrupting her in astonishment. "Have
you seen the gibbet in the Square? Do you call that no danger?"
"It is not erected for you."
"No?"
"No, Monsieur," she answered firmly, "I swear it is not. And I know of
reasons, urgent reasons, why you should not go. M. de Tavannes"--she
named her husband nervously, as conscious of the weak spot--"before he
rode abroad laid strict orders on all to keep within, since the smallest
matter might kindle the city. Therefore, M. de Tignonville, I request,
nay I entreat," she continued with greater urgency, as she saw his
gesture of denial, "you to stay here until he returns."
"And you, Madame, will answer for my life?"
She faltered. For a moment, a moment only, her colour ebbed. What if
she deceived herself? What if she surrendered her old lover to death?
What if--but the doubt was of a moment only. Her duty was plain.
"I will answer for it," she said, with pale lips, "if you remain here.
And I beg, I implore you--by the love you once had for me, M. de
Tignonville," she added desperately, seeing that he was about to refuse,
"to remain here."
"Once!" he retorted, lashing himself into ignoble rage. "By the love I
once had! Say, rather, the love I have, Madame--for I am no
woman-weathercock to wed the winner, and hold or not hold, stay or go, as
he commands! You, it seems," he continued with a sneer, "have learned
the wife's lesson well! You would practise on me now, as you practised
on me the other night when you stood between him and me! I yielded then,
I spared him. And what did I get by it? Bonds and a prison! And what
shall I get now? The same! No, Madame," he continued bitterly,
addressing himself as much to the Carlats and the others as to his old
mistress. "I do not change! I loved! I love! I was going and I go! If
death lay beyond that door"--and he pointed to it--"and life at his will
were certain here, I would pass the threshold rather than take my life of
him!" And, dragging La Tribe with him, with a passionate gesture he
rushed by her, opened the door, and disappeared in the next room.