"He has not entered," the minister answered, "for that reason. He is
waiting at the postern, where he landed. He came, hoping to be of use to
you."
She paused a moment, and when she spoke again her aspect had undergone a
subtle change. Her head was high, a flush had risen to her cheeks, her
eyes were bright.
"Then," she said, addressing La Tribe, "do you, Monsieur, go to him, and
pray him in my name to retire to St. Gilles, if he can do so without
peril. He has no place here--now; and if he can go safely to his home it
will be well that he do so. Add, if you please, that Madame de Tavannes
thanks him for his offer of aid, but in her husband's house she needs no
other protection."
Bigot's eyes sparkled with joy.
The minister hesitated. "No more, Madame?" he faltered. He was tender-
hearted, and Tignonville was of his people.
"No more," she said gravely, bowing her head. "It is not M. de
Tignonville I have to thank, but Heaven's mercy, that I do not stand here
at this moment unhappy as I entered--a woman accursed, to be pointed at
while I live. And the dead"--she pointed solemnly through the dark
casement to the shore--"the dead lie there."
La Tribe went.
She stood a moment in thought, and then took the keys from the rough
stone window-ledge on which she had laid them when she entered. As the
cold iron touched her fingers she shuddered. The contact awoke again the
horror and misery in which she had groped, a lost thing, when she last
felt that chill.
"Take them," she said; and she gave them to Bigot. "Until my lord can
leave his couch they will remain in your charge, and you will answer for
all to him. Go, now, take the light; and in half an hour send Madame
Carlat to me."
A wave broke heavily on the causeway and ran down seething to the sea;
and another and another, filling the room with rhythmical thunders. But
the voice of the sea was no longer the same in the darkness, where the
Countess knelt in silence beside the bed--knelt, her head bowed on her
clasped hands, as she had knelt before, but with a mind how different,
with what different thoughts! Count Hannibal could see her head but
dimly, for the light shed upwards by the spume of the sea fell only on
the rafters. But he knew she was there, and he would fain, for his heart
was full, have laid his hand on her hair.