"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu, Madame!" he cried, "at what a cost!"
And that arrested, that touched her in the depths of her grief and her
horror; even while the gibbet on the causeway, which had burned itself
into her eyeballs, hung before her. For she knew that it was the cost to
her he was counting. She knew that for himself he had ever held life
cheap, that he could have seen Tignonville suffer without a qualm. And
the thoughtfulness for her, the value he placed on a thing--even on a
rival's life--because its was dear to her, touched her home, moved her as
few things could have moved her at that moment. She saw it of a piece
with all that had gone before, with all that had passed between them,
since that fatal Sunday in Paris. But she made no sign. More than she
had said she would not say; words of love, even of reconciliation, had no
place on her lips while he whom she had sacrificed awaited his burial.
And meantime the man beside her lay and found it incredible. "It was
just," she had said. And he knew it; Tignonville's folly--that and that
only had led them into the snare and caused his own capture. But what
had justice to do with the things of this world? In his experience, the
strong hand--that was justice, in France; and possession--that was law.
By the strong hand he had taken her, and by the strong hand she might
have freed herself.
And she had not. There was the incredible thing. She had chosen instead
to do justice! It passed belief. Opening his eyes on a silence which
had lasted some minutes, a silence rendered more solemn by the lapping
water without, Tavannes saw her kneeling in the dusk of the chamber, her
head bowed over his couch, her face hidden in her hands. He knew that
she prayed, and feebly he deemed the whole a dream. No scene akin to it
had had place in his life; and, weakened and in pain, he prayed that the
vision might last for ever, that he might never awake.
But by-and-by, wrestling with the dread thought of what she had done, and
the horror which would return upon her by fits and spasms, she flung out
a hand, and it fell on him. He started, and the movement, jarring the
broken limb, wrung from him a cry of pain. She looked up and was going
to speak, when a scuffling of feet under the gateway arch, and a confused
sound of several voices raised at once, arrested the words on her lips.
She rose to her feet and listened. Dimly he could see her face through
the dusk. Her eyes were on the door, and she breathed quickly.