CHAPTER XIV.
TOO SHORT A SPOON.
Count Hannibal remained seated, his chin sunk on his breast, until his ear assured him that the three men had descended the stairs to the floor below. Then he rose, and, taking the lantern from the table, on which Peridol had placed it, he went softly to the door, which, like the window, stood in a recess--in this case the prolongation of the passage. A brief scrutiny satisfied him that escape that way was impossible, and he turned, after a cursory glance at the floor and ceiling, to the dark, windy aperture which yawned at the end of the apartment. Placing the lantern on the table, and covering it with his cloak, he mounted the window recess, and, stepping to the unguarded edge, looked out.
He knew, rather than saw, that Peridol had told the truth. The smell of the aguish flats which fringed that part of Paris rose strong in his nostrils. He guessed that the sluggish arm of the Seine which divided the Arsenal from the Île des Louviers crawled below; but the night was dark, and it was impossible to discern land from water. He fancied that he could trace the outline of the island--an uninhabited place, given up to wood piles; but the lights of the college quarter beyond it, which rose feebly twinkling, to the crown of St. Geneviève, confused his sight and rendered the nearer gloom more opaque. From that direction and from the Cité to his right came sounds which told of a city still heaving in its blood-stained sleep, and even in its dreams planning further excesses. Now a distant shot, and now a faint murmur on one of the bridges, or a far-off cry, raucous, sudden, curdled the blood. But even of what was passing under cover of the darkness, he could learn little; and after standing awhile with a hand on either side of the window he found the night air chill. He stepped back, and, descending to the floor, uncovered the lantern and set it on the table. His thoughts travelled back to the preparations he had made the night before with a view to securing Mademoiselle's person, and he considered, with a grim smile, how little he had foreseen that within twenty-four hours he would himself be a prisoner. Presently, finding his mask oppressive, he removed it, and, laying it on the table before him, sat scowling at the light.
Biron had jockeyed him cleverly. Well, the worse for Armand de Gontaut de Biron if after this adventure the luck went against him! But in the meantime? In the meantime his fate was sealed if harm befell Biron. And what the King's real mind in Biron's case was, and what the Queen-Mother's, he could not say; just as it was impossible to predict how far, when they had the Grand Master at their mercy, they would resist the temptation to add him to the victims. If Biron placed himself at once in Marshal Tavannes' hands, all might be well. But if he ventured within the long arm of the Guises, or went directly to the Louvre, the fact that with the Grand Master's fate Count Hannibal's was bound up, would not weigh a straw. In such crises the great sacrificed the less great, the less great the small, without a scruple. And the Guises did not love Count Hannibal; he was not loved by many. Even the strength of his brother the Marshal stood rather in the favour of the King's heir, for whom he had won the battle of Jarnac, than intrinsically; and, durable in ordinary times, might snap in the clash of forces and interests which the desperate madness of this day had let loose on Paris.
It was not the peril in which he stood, however--though, with the cold clear eye of the man who had often faced peril, he appreciated it to a nicety--that Count Hannibal found least bearable, but his enforced inactivity. He had thought to ride the whirlwind and direct the storm, and out of the danger of others to compact his own success. Instead he lay here, not only powerless to guide his destiny, which hung on the discretion of another, but unable to stretch forth a finger to further his plans.
As he sat looking darkly at the lantern, his mind followed Biron and his riders through the midnight streets: along St. Antoine and La Verrerie, through the gloomy narrows of the Rue la Ferronerie, and so past the house in the Rue St. Honoré where Mademoiselle sat awaiting the morrow--sat awaiting Tignonville, the minister, the marriage! Doubtless there were still bands of plunderers roaming to and fro; at the barriers troops of archers stopping the suspected; at the windows pale faces gazing down; at the gates of the Temple, and of the walled enclosures which largely made up the city, strong guards set to prevent invasion. Biron would go with sufficient to secure himself; and unless he encountered with the bodyguard of Guise his passage would quiet the town. But was it so certain that she was safe? He knew his men, and while he had been free he had not hesitated to leave her in their care. But now that he could not go, now that he could not raise a hand to help, the confidence which had not failed him in straits more dangerous grew weak. He pictured the things which might happen, at which, in his normal frame of mind, he would have laughed. Now they troubled him so that he started at a shadow, so that he quailed at a thought. He, who last night, when free to act, had timed his coming and her rescue to a minute! Who had rejoiced in the peril, since with the glamour of such things foolish women were taken! Who had not flinched when the crowd roared most fiercely for her blood!
Why had he suffered himself to be trapped! Why indeed? And thrice in passion he paced the room. Long ago the famous Nostradamus had told him that he would live to be a king, but of the smallest kingdom in the world. "Every man is a king in his coffin," he had answered. "The grave is cold and your kingdom shall be warm," the wizard had rejoined. On which the courtiers had laughed, promising him a Moorish island and a black queen. And he had gibed with the rest, but secretly had taken note of the sovereign counties of France, their rulers and their heirs. Now he held the thought in horror, foreseeing no county, but the cage under the stifling tiles at Loches, in which Cardinal Balue and many another had worn out their hearts.
He came to that thought not by way of his own peril, but of Mademoiselle's; which affected him in so novel a fashion that he wondered at his folly. At last, tired of watching the shadows which the draught set dancing on the wall, he drew his cloak about him and lay down on the straw. He had kept vigil the previous night, and in a few minutes, with a campaigner's ease, he was asleep.
Midnight had struck. About two the light in the lantern burned low in the socket, and with a soft sputtering went out. For an hour after that the room lay still, silent, dark; then slowly the grey dawn, the greyer for the river mist which wrapped the neighbourhood in a clammy shroud, began to creep into the room and discover the vague shapes of things. Again an hour passed, and the sun was rising above Montreuil, and here and there the river began to shimmer through the fog. But in the room it was barely daylight when the sleeper awoke, and sat up, his face expectant. Something had roused him. He listened.
His ear, and the habit of vigilance which a life of danger instils, had not deceived him. There were men moving in the passage; men who shuffled their feet impatiently. Had Biron returned! Or had aught happened to him, and were these men come to avenge him? Count Hannibal rose and stole across the boards to the door, and, setting his ear to it, listened.
He listened while a man might count a hundred and fifty, counting slowly. Then, for the third part of a second, he turned his head, and his eyes travelled the room. He stooped again and listened more closely, scarcely breathing. There were voices as well as feet to be heard now; one voice--he thought it was Peridol's--which held on long, now low, now rising into violence. Others were audible at intervals, but only in a growl or a bitter exclamation, that told of minds made up and hands which would not be restrained. He caught his own name, Tavannes--the mask was useless then! And once a noisy movement which came to nothing, foiled, he fancied, by Peridol.
He knew enough. He rose to his full height, and his eyes seemed a little closer together; an ugly smile curved his lips. His gaze travelled over the objects in the room, the bare stools and table, the lantern, the wine pitcher; beyond these, in a corner, the cloak and straw on the low bed. The light, cold and grey, fell cheerlessly on the dull chamber, and showed it in harmony with the ominous whisper which grew in the gallery; with the stern-faced listener who stood, his one hand on the door. He looked, but he found nothing to his purpose, nothing to serve his end, whatever his end was; and with a quick light step he left the door, mounted the window recess, and, poised on the very edge, looked down.
If he thought to escape that way his hope was desperate. The depth to the water-level was not, he judged, twelve feet. But Peridol had told the truth. Below lay not water, but a smooth surface of viscid slime, here luminous with the florescence of rottenness, there furrowed by a tiny runnel of moisture which sluggishly crept across it to the slow stream beyond. This quicksand, vile and treacherous, lapped the wall below the window, and more than accounted for the absence of bars or fastenings. But, leaning far out, he saw that it ended at the angle of the building, at a point twenty feet or so to the right of his position.
He sprang to the floor again, and listened an instant; then, with guarded movements--for there was fear in the air, fear in the silent room, and at any moment the rush might be made, the door burst in--he set the lantern and wine pitcher on the floor, and took up the table in his arms. He began to carry it to the window, but, halfway thither, his eye told him that it would not pass through the opening, and he set it down again and glided to the bed. Again he was thwarted; the bed was screwed to the floor. Another might have despaired at that, but he rose with no sign of dismay, and listening, always listening, he spread his cloak on the floor, and deftly, with as little noise and rustling as might be, he piled the straw in it, compressed the bundle, and, cutting the bed-cords with his dagger, bound all together with them. In three steps he was in the embrasure of the window, and, even as the men in the passage thrust the lieutenant aside and with a sudden uproar came down to the door, he flung the bundle lightly and carefully to the right--so lightly and carefully, and with so nice and deliberate a calculation, that it seemed odd it fell beyond the reach of an ordinary leap.
An instant and he was on the floor again. The men had to unlock, to draw back the bolts, to draw back the door which opened outwards; their numbers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them. When they burst in at last, with a roar of "To the river! To the river!"--burst in a rush of struggling shoulders and lowered pikes, they found him standing, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table, his arms folded. And the sight of the passive figure for a moment stayed them.
"Say your prayers, child of Satan!" cried the leader, waving his weapon. "We give you one minute!"
"Ay, one minute!" his followers chimed in. "Be ready!"
"You would murder me?" he said with dignity. And when they shouted assent, "Good!" he answered. "It is between you and M. de Biron, whose guest I am. But"--with a glance which passed round the ring of glaring eyes and working features--"I would leave a last word for some one. Is there any one here who values a safe-conduct from the King? 'Tis for two men coming and going for a fortnight." And he held up a slip of paper.
The leader cried "To hell with his safe-conduct! Say your prayers!"
But all were not of his mind; on one or two of the crimson savage faces--the faces, for the most part, of honest men maddened by their wrongs--flashed an avaricious gleam. A safe-conduct? To avenge, to slay, to kill--and to go safe! For some minds such a thing has an invincible fascination. A man thrust himself forward. "Ay, I'll have it!" he cried. "Give it here!"
"It is yours," Count Hannibal answered, "if you will carry ten words to Marshal Tavannes--when I am gone."
The man's neighbour laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "And Marshal Tavannes will pay you finely," he said.
But Maudron, the man who had offered, shook off the hand. "If I take the message!" he muttered in a grim aside. "Do you think me mad?" And then aloud he cried, "Ay, I'll take your message! Give me the paper."
"You swear you will take it?"
The man had no intention of taking it, but he perjured himself and went forward. The others would have pressed round too, half in envy, half in scorn; but Tavannes by a gesture stayed them. "Gentlemen, I ask a minute only," he said. "A minute for a dying man is not much. Your friends had as much." And the fellows, acknowledging the claim and assured that their victim could not escape, let Maudron go round the table to him.
The man was in haste and ill at ease, conscious of his evil intentions and the fraud he was practising; and at once greedy to have, yet ashamed of the bargain he was making. His attention was divided between the slip of paper, on which his eyes fixed themselves, and the attitude of his comrades; he paid little heed to Count Hannibal, whom he knew to be unarmed. Only when Tavannes seemed to ponder on his message, and to be fain to delay, "Go on," he muttered with brutal frankness; "your time is up!"
Tavannes started, the paper slipped from his fingers. Maudron saw a chance of getting it without committing himself, and quick as the thought leapt up in his mind he stooped, and grasped the paper, and would have leapt back with it! But quick as he, and quicker, Tavannes too stooped, gripped him by the waist, and with a prodigious effort, and a yell in which all the man's stormy nature, restrained to a part during the last few minutes, broke forth, he flung the ill-fated wretch head first through the window.
The movement carried Tavannes himself--even while his victim's scream rang through the chamber--into the embrasure. An instant he hung on the verge; then, as the men, a moment thunderstruck, sprang forward to avenge their comrade, he leapt out, jumping for the struggling body that had struck the mud, and now lay in it face downwards.
He alighted on it, and drove it deep into the quaking slime; but he himself bounded off right-handed. The peril was appalling, the possibility untried, the chance one which only a doomed man would have taken. But he reached the straw-bale, and it gave him a momentary, a precarious footing. He could not regain his balance, he could not even for an instant stand upright on it. But from its support he leapt on convulsively, and as a pike, flung from above, wounded him in the shoulder, he fell his length in the slough--but forward, with his outstretched hands resting on soil of a harder nature. They sank, it is true, to the elbow, but he dragged his body forward on them, and forward, and freeing one by a last effort of strength--he could not free both, and, as it was, half his face was submerged--he reached out another yard, and gripped a balk of wood, which projected from the corner of the building for the purpose of fending off the stream in flood-time.
The men at the window shrieked with rage as he slowly drew himself from the slough, and stood from head to foot a pillar of mud. Shout as they might, they had no firearms, and, crowded together in the narrow embrasure, they could take no aim with their pikes. They could only look on in furious impotence, flinging curses at him until he passed from their view, behind the angle of the building.
Here for a score of yards a strip of hard foreshore ran between mud and wall. He struggled along it until he reached the end of the wall; then with a shuddering glance at the black heaving pit from which he had escaped, and which yet gurgled above the body of the hapless Maudron--a tribute to horror which even his fierce nature could not withhold--he turned and painfully climbed the river-bank. The pike-wound in his shoulder was slight, but the effort had been supreme; the sweat poured from his brow, his visage was grey and drawn. Nevertheless, when he had put fifty paces between himself and the buildings of the Arsenal he paused, and turned. He saw that the men had run to other windows which looked that way; and his face lightened and his form dilated with triumph.
He shook his fist at them. "Ho, fools!" he cried, "you kill not Tavannes so! Till our next meeting at Montfaucon, fare you well!"
CHAPTER XV.
THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE.
As the exertion of power is for the most part pleasing, so the exercise of that which a woman possesses over a man is especially pleasant. When in addition a risk of no ordinary kind has been run, and the happy issue has been barely expected--above all when the momentary gain seems an augury of final victory--it is impossible that a feeling akin to exultation should not arise in the mind, however black the horizon, and however distant the fair haven.
The situation in which Count Hannibal left Mademoiselle de Vrillac will be remembered. She had prevailed on him; but in return he had bowed her to the earth, partly by subtle threats, and partly by sheer savagery. He had left her weeping, with the words "Madame de Tavannes" ringing doom in her ears, and the dark phantom of his will pointing onward to an inevitable future. Had she abandoned hope, it would have been natural.
But the girl was of a spirit not long nor easily cowed; and Tavannes had not left her half an hour before the reflection, that so far the honours of the day were hers, rose up to console her. In spite of his power and her impotence, she had imposed her will upon his; she had established an influence over him, she had discovered a scruple which stayed him, and a limit beyond which he would not pass. In the result she might escape; for the conditions which he had accepted with an ill grace, might prove beyond his fulfilling. She might escape! True, many in her place would have feared a worse fate and harsher handling. But there lay half the merit of her victory. It had left her not only in a better position, but with a new confidence in her power over her adversary. He would insist on the bargain struck between them; within its four corners she could look for no indulgence. But if the conditions proved to be beyond his power, she believed that he would spare her: with an ill grace, indeed, with such ferocity and coarse reviling as her woman's pride might scarcely support. But he would spare her.
And if the worst befell her? She would still have the consolation of knowing that from the cataclysm which had overwhelmed her friends she had ransomed those most dear to her. Owing to the position of her chamber, she saw nothing of the excesses to which Paris gave itself up during the remainder of that day, and to which it returned with unabated zest on the following morning. But the Carlats and her women learned from the guards below what was passing; and quaking and cowering in their corners fixed frightened eyes on her, who was their stay and hope. How could she prove false to them? How doom them to perish, had there been no question of her lover?
Of him she sat thinking by the hour together. She recalled with solemn tenderness the moment in which he had devoted himself to the death which came but halfway to seize them; nor was she slow to forgive his subsequent withdrawal, and his attempt to rescue her in spite of herself. She found the impulse to die glorious; the withdrawal--for the actor was her lover--a thing done for her, which he would not have done for himself, and which she quickly forgave him. The revulsion of feeling which had conquered her at the time, and led her to tear herself from him, no longer moved her much; while all in his action that might have seemed in other eyes less than heroic, all in his conduct--in a crisis demanding the highest--that smacked of common or mean, vanished, for she still clung to him. Clung to him, not so much with the passion of the mature woman, as with the maiden and sentimental affection of one who has now no hope of possessing, and for whom love no longer spells life but sacrifice.
She had leisure for these musings, for she was left to herself all that day, and until late on the following day. Her own servants waited on her, and it was known that below stairs Count Hannibal's riders kept sullen ward behind barred doors and shuttered windows, refusing admission to all who came. Now and again echoes of the riot which filled the streets with bloodshed reached her ears: or word of the more striking occurrences was brought to her by Madame Carlat. And early on this second day, Monday, it was whispered that M. de Tavannes had not returned, and that the men below were growing uneasy.
At last, when the suspense below and above was growing tense, it was broken. Footsteps and voices were heard ascending the stairs, the trampling and hubbub were followed by a heavy knock; perforce the door was opened. While Mademoiselle, who had risen, awaited with a beating heart she knew not what, a cowled father, in the dress of the monks of St. Magloire, stood on the threshold, and, crossing himself, muttered the words of benediction. He entered slowly.
No sight could have been more dreadful to Mademoiselle; for it set at naught the conditions which she had so hardly exacted. What if Count Hannibal were behind, were even now mounting the stairs, prepared to force her to a marriage before this shaveling? Or ready to proceed, if she refused, to the last extremity? Sudden terror taking her by the throat choked her; her colour fled, her hand flew to her breast. Yet, before the door had closed on Bigot, she had recovered herself.
"This intrusion is not by M. de Tavannes' orders!" she cried, stepping forward haughtily. "This person has no business here. How dare you admit him?"
The Norman showed his bearded visage a moment at the door. "My lord's orders," he muttered sullenly. And he closed the door on them.
She had a Huguenot's hatred of a cowl; and, in this crisis, her reasons for fearing it. Her eyes blazed with indignation. "Enough!" she cried, pointing with a gesture of dismissal to the door. "Go back to him who sent you! If he will insult me, let him do it to my face! If he will perjure himself, let him forswear himself in person. Or, if you come on your own account," she continued, flinging prudence to the winds, "as your brethren came to Philippa de Luns, to offer me the choice you offered her, I give you her answer! If I had thought of myself only, I had not lived so long! And rather than bear your presence or hear your arguments----"
She came to a sudden, odd, quavering pause on the word; her lips remained parted, she swayed an instant on her feet. The next moment Madame Carlat, to whom the visitor had turned his shoulder, doubted her eyes, for Mademoiselle was in the monk's arms!
"Clotilde! Clotilde!" he cried, and held her to him.
For the monk was M. de Tignonville! Under the cowl was the lover with whom Mademoiselle's thoughts had been engaged. In this disguise, and armed with Tavannes' note to Madame St. Lo--which the guards below knew for Count Hannibal's hand, though they were unable to decipher the contents--he had found no difficulty in making his way to her.
He had learned before he entered that Tavannes was abroad, and was aware therefore that he ran little risk. His betrothed, on the other hand, who knew nothing of his adventures in the interval, saw in him one who came to her at the greatest risk, across unnumbered perils, through streets swimming with blood. And though she had never embraced him save in the crisis of the massacre, though she had never called him by his Christian name, in the joy of this meeting she abandoned herself to him, she clung to him weeping, she forgot for the time his defection, and thought only of him who had returned to her so gallantly, who brought into the room a breath of Poitou, and the sea, and the old days, and the old life; and at the sight of whom the horrors of the last two days fell from her--for the moment.
And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room was a sound of weeping. The least moved was, for a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who, as we know, had gone through much that day. But even his heart swelled, partly with pride, partly with thankfulness that he had returned to one who loved him so well. Fate had been kinder to him than he deserved; but he need not confess that now. When he had brought off the coup which he had in his mind, he would hasten to forget that he had entertained other ideas.
Mademoiselle had been the first to be carried away; she was also the first to recover herself. "I had forgotten," she cried suddenly. "I had forgotten," and she wrested herself from his embrace with violence, and stood panting, her face white, her eyes affrighted. "I must not! And you--I had forgotten that too! To be here, monsieur, is the worst office you can do me. You must go! Go, monsieur, in mercy I beg of you, while it is possible. Every moment you are here, every moment you spend in this house, I shudder."
"You need not fear for me," he said, in a tone of bravado. He did not understand.
"I fear for myself!" she answered. And then, wringing her hands, divided between her love for him and her fear for herself, "Oh, forgive me!" she said. "You do not know that he has promised to spare me, if he cannot produce you, and--and--a minister! He has granted me that; but I thought when you entered that he had gone back on his word, and sent a priest, and it maddened me! I could not bear to think that I had gained nothing. Now you understand, and you will pardon me, monsieur? If he cannot produce you I am saved. Go then, leave me, I beg, without a moment's delay."
He laughed derisively as he turned back his cowl and squared his shoulders. "All that is over!" he said, "over and done with, sweet! M. de Tavannes is at this moment a prisoner in the Arsenal. On my way hither I fell in with M. de Biron, and he told me. The Grand Master, who would have had me join his company, had been all night at Marshal Tavannes' hotel, where he had been detained longer than he expected. He stood pledged to release Count Hannibal on his return, but at my request he consented to hold him one hour, and to do also a little thing for me."
The glow of hope which had transfigured her face faded slowly. "It will not help," she said, "if he find you here."
"He will not! Nor you!"
"How, monsieur?"
"In a few minutes," he explained--he could not hide his exultation, "a message will come from the Arsenal in the name of Tavannes, bidding the monk he sent to you bring you to him. A spoken message, corroborated by my presence, should suffice: 'Bid the monk who is now with Mademoiselle,' it will run, 'bring her to me at the Arsenal, and let four pikes guard them hither.' When I begged M. de Biron to do this, he laughed. 'I can do better,' he said. 'They shall bring one of Count Hannibal's gloves, which he left on my table. Always supposing my rascals have done him no harm, which God forbid, for I am answerable.'"
Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the meeting with Biron had suggested, could see no flaw in it. She could, and though she heard him to the end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took in not only Madame Carlat and the waiting-woman who stood at the door but the absent servants, "And what of these?" she said. "What of these? You forgot them, monsieur. You do not think, you cannot have thought, that I would abandon them? That I would leave them to such mercy as he, defeated, might extend to them? No, you forgot them."
He did not know what to answer, for the jealous eyes of the frightened waiting-woman, fierce with the fierceness of a hunted animal, were on him. The Carlat and she had heard, could hear. At last, "Better one than none!" he muttered, in a voice so low that if the servants caught his meaning it was but indistinctly. "I have to think of you."
"And I of them," she answered firmly. "Nor is that all. Were they not here, it could not be. My word is passed--though a moment ago, monsieur, in the joy of seeing you I forgot it. And how," she continued, "if I keep not my word, can I expect him to keep his? Or how, if I am ready to break the bond, on this happening which I never expected, can I hold him to conditions which he loves as little--as little as I love him?"
Her voice dropped piteously on the last words; her eyes, craving her lover's pardon, sought his. But rage, not pity or admiration, was the feeling roused in Tignonville's breast. He stood staring at her, struck dumb by folly so immense. At last, "You cannot mean this," he blurted out. "You cannot mean, Mademoiselle, that you intend to stand on that! To keep a promise wrung from you by force, by treachery, in the midst of such horrors as he and his have brought upon us! It is inconceivable!"
She shook her head. "I promised," she said.
"You were forced to it."
"But the promise saved our lives."
"From murderers! From assassins!" he protested.
She shook her head. "I cannot go back," she said firmly; "I cannot."
"Then you are willing to marry him," he cried in ignoble anger. "That is it! Nay, you must wish to marry him! For, as for his conditions, Mademoiselle," the young man continued, with an insulting laugh, "you cannot think seriously of them. He keep conditions and you in his power! He, Count Hannibal! But for the matter of that, and were he in the mind to keep them, what are they? There are plenty of ministers. I left one only this morning. I could lay my hand on one in five minutes. He has only to find one therefore--and to find me!"
"Yes, monsieur," she cried, trembling with wounded pride, "it is for that reason I implore you to go. The sooner you leave me, the sooner you place yourself in a position of security, the happier for me! Every moment that you spend here, you endanger both yourself and me!"
"If you will not be persuaded----"
"I shall not be persuaded," she answered firmly, "and you do but"--alas! her pride began to break down, her voice to quiver, she looked piteously at him--"by staying here make it harder for me to--to----"
"Hush!" cried Madame Carlat, "Hush!" And as they started and turned towards her--she was at the end of the chamber by the door, almost out of earshot--she raised a warning hand. "Listen!" she muttered, "some one has entered the house."
"'Tis my messenger from Biron," Tignonville answered sullenly. And he drew his cowl over his face, and, hiding his hands in his sleeves, moved towards the door. But on the threshold he turned and held out his arms. He could not go thus. "Mademoiselle! Clotilde!" he cried with passion, "for the last time, listen to me, come with me. Be persuaded!"
"Hush!" Madame Carlat interposed again, and turned a scared face on them. "It is no messenger! It is Tavannes himself: I know his voice." And she wrung her hands. "Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what are we to do?" she continued, panic-stricken. And she looked all ways about the room.
CHAPTER XVI.
AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
Fear leapt into Mademoiselle's eyes, but she commanded herself. She signed to Madame Carlat to be silent, and they listened, gazing at one another, hoping against hope that the woman was mistaken. A long moment they waited, and some were beginning to breathe again, when the strident tones of Count Hannibal's voice rolled up the staircase, and put an end to doubt. Mademoiselle grasped the table and stood supporting herself by it. "What are we to do?" she muttered. "What are we to do?" and she turned distractedly towards the women. The courage which had supported her in her lover's absence had abandoned her now. "If he finds him here I am lost! I am lost!"
"He will not know me," Tignonville muttered. But he spoke uncertainly; and his gaze, shifting hither and thither, belied the boldness of his words.
Madame Carlat's eyes flew round the room; on her for once the burden seemed to rest. Alas! the room had no second door, and the windows looked on a courtyard guarded by Tavannes' people. And even now Count Hannibal's step rang on the stair! his hand was almost on the latch. The woman wrung her hands; then, a thought striking her, she darted to a corner where Mademoiselle's robes hung on pegs against the wall.
"Here!" she cried, raising them. "Behind these! He may not be seen here! Quick, monsieur, quick! Hide yourself!"
It was a forlorn hope--the suggestion of one who had not thought out the position; and, whatever its promise, Mademoiselle's pride revolted against it.
"No," she cried. "Not there!" while Tignonville, who knew that the step was useless, since Count Hannibal must have learned that a monk had entered, held his ground.
"You could not deny yourself!" he muttered hurriedly.
"And a priest with me?" she answered; and she shook her head.
There was no time for more, and even as Mademoiselle spoke Count Hannibal's knuckles tapped the door. She cast a last look at her lover. He had turned his back on the window; the light no longer fell on his face. It was possible that he might pass unrecognised, if Tavannes' stay was brief; at any rate the risk must be run. In a half-stifled voice she bade her woman, Javette, open the door.
Count Hannibal bowed low as he entered; and he deceived the others. But he did not deceive her. He had not crossed the threshold before she repented that she had not acted on Tignonville's suggestion, and denied herself. For what could escape those hard keen eyes, which swept the room, saw all, and seemed to see nothing--those eyes in which there dwelt even now a glint of cruel humour? He might deceive others, but she who panted within his grasp, as the wild bird palpitates in the hand of the fowler, was not deceived! He saw, he knew! although, as he bowed, and smiling, stood upright, he looked only at her.
"I expected to be with you before this," he said courteously, "but I have been detained. First, Mademoiselle, by some of your friends, who were reluctant to part with me; then by some of your enemies, who, finding me in no handsome case, took me for a Huguenot escaped from the river, and drove me to shifts to get clear of them. However, now I am come, I have news."
"News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could hardly be good news.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville," he answered. "I have little doubt that I shall be able to produce him this evening, and so to satisfy one of your scruples. And as I trust that this good father," he went on, turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking with the sneer from which he seldom refrained, Catholic as he was, when he mentioned a priest, "has by this time succeeded in removing the other, and persuading you to accept his ministrations----"
"No!" she cried impulsively.
"No?" with a dubious smile, and a glance from one to the other. "Oh, I had hoped better things. But he still may? He still may. I am sure he may. In which case, Mademoiselle, your modesty must pardon me if I plead urgency, and fix the hour after supper this evening for the fulfilment of your promise."
She turned white to the lips. "After supper?" she gasped.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, this evening. Shall I say--at eight o'clock?"
In horror of the thing which menaced her, of the thing from which only two hours separated her, she could find no words but those which she had already used. The worst was upon her; worse than the worst could not befall her. "But he has not persuaded me!" she cried, clenching her hands in passion. "He has not persuaded me!"
"Still he may, Mademoiselle."
"He will not!" she cried wildly. "He will not!"
The room was going round with her. The precipice yawned at her feet; its naked terrors turned her brain. She had been pushed nearer, and nearer, and nearer; struggle as she might she was on the verge. A mist rose before her eyes, and though they thought she listened she understood nothing of what was passing. When she came to herself after the lapse of a minute, Count Hannibal was speaking.
"Permit him another trial," he was saying in a tone of bland irony. "A short time longer, Mademoiselle! One more assault, father! The weapons of the Church could not be better directed or to a more worthy object; and, successful, shall not fail of due recognition and an earthly reward."
And while she listened, half fainting, with a humming in her ears, he was gone. The door closed on him, and the three--Mademoiselle's woman had withdrawn when she opened to him--looked at one another. The girl parted her lips to speak, but she only smiled piteously; and it was M. de Tignonville who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather relief than any other feeling.
"Come, all is not lost yet," he said briskly. "If I can escape from the house----"
"He knows you," she answered.
"What?"
"He knows you," Mademoiselle repeated in a tone almost apathetic. "I read it in his eyes. He knew you at once: and knew, too," she added bitterly, "that he had here under his hand one of the two things he required."
"Then why did he hide his knowledge?" the young man retorted sharply.
"Why?" she answered. "To induce me to waive the other condition in the hope of saving you. Oh!" she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, "he has the cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match for him, monsieur. Nor I; nor any of us. And"--with a gesture of despair--"he will be my master! He will break me to his will and to his hand! I shall be his! His, body and soul, body and soul!" she continued drearily, as she sank into a chair and, rocking herself to and fro, covered her face. "I shall be his! His till I die!"
The man's eyes burned, and the pulse in his temples beat wildly. "But you shall not," he exclaimed. "I may be no match for him in cunning, you say well. But I can kill him. And I will!" He paced up and down. "I will!"
"You should have done it when he was here," she answered, half in scorn, half in earnest.
"It is not too late," he cried; and then he stopped, silenced by the opening door. It was Javette who entered.
They looked at her, and before she spoke were on their feet. Her face, white and eager, marking something besides fear, announced that she brought news. She closed the door behind her, and in a moment it was told.
"Monsieur can escape, if he is quick," she cried in a low tone; and they saw that she trembled with excitement. "They are at supper. But he must be quick! He must be quick!"
"Is not the door guarded!"
"It is, but----"
"And he knows! Your mistress says that he knows that I am here."
For a moment Javette looked startled. "It is possible," she muttered. "But he has gone out."
Madame Carlat clapped her hands. "I heard the door close," she said, "three minutes ago."
"And if monsieur can reach the room in which he supped last night, the window that was broken is only blocked"--she swallowed once or twice in her excitement--"with something he can move. And then monsieur is in the street, where his cowl will protect him."
"But Count Hannibal's men?" he asked eagerly.
"They are eating in the lodge by the door."
"Ha! And they cannot see the other room from there?"
Javette nodded. Her tale told, she seemed to be unable to add a word. Mademoiselle, who knew her for a craven, wondered that she had found courage either to note what she had or to bring the news. But as Providence had been so good to them as to put it into this woman's head to act as she had, it behoved them to use the opportunity--the last, the very last opportunity they might have.
She turned to Tignonville. "Oh, go!" she cried feverishly. "Go, I beg! Go now, monsieur! The greatest kindness you can do me is to place yourself as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint colour, the flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glittered.
"Right, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for once. "I go! And do you be of good courage." He held her hand an instant, then, moving to the door, he opened it and listened. They all pressed behind him to hear. A murmur of voices, low and distant, mounted the staircase and bore out the girl's tale; apart from this the house was silent. Tignonville cast a last look at Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture of farewell, glided a-tiptoe to the stairs and began to descend, his face hidden in his cowl. They watched him reach the angle of the staircase, they watched him vanish beyond it; and still they listened, looking at one another when a board creaked or the voices below were hushed for a moment.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE DUEL.
At the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused. The droning Norman voices of the men on guard issued from an open door a few paces before him on the left. He caught a jest, the coarse chuckling laughter which attended it, and the gurgle of applause which followed; and he knew that at any moment one of the men might step out and discover him. Fortunately the door of the room with the shattered window was almost within reach of his hand on the right side of the passage, and he stepped softly to it. He stood an instant hesitating, his hand on the latch; then, alarmed by a movement in the guard-room, as if some were rising, he pushed the door in a panic, slid into the room, and shut the door behind him. He was safe, and he had made no noise; but at the table, at supper, with his back to him and his face to the partly closed window, sat Count Hannibal!
The young man's heart stood still. For a long minute he gazed at the Count's back, spellbound and unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on without looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly he had entered so quietly that he had not been heard, or possibly his entrance was taken for that of a servant. In either case, there was a chance that he might retire after the same fashion; and he had actually raised the latch, and was drawing the door to him with infinite precaution, when Tavannes' voice struck him, as it were, in the face.
"Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignonville," he said, without looking round. "In your cowl you do not feel it, but it is otherwise with me."
The unfortunate Tignonville stood transfixed, glaring at the back of the other's head. For an instant he could not find his voice. At last "Curse you!" he hissed in a transport of rage. "Curse you! You did know, then? And she was right."
"If you mean that I expected you, to be sure, monsieur," Count Hannibal answered. "See, your place is laid. You will not feel the air from without there. The very becoming dress which you have adopted secures you from cold. But--do you not find it somewhat oppressive this summer weather?"
"Curse you!" the young man cried, trembling.
Tavannes turned and looked at him with a dark smile. "The curse may fall," he said, "but I fancy it will not be in consequence of your petitions, monsieur. And now, were it not better you played the man?"
"If I were armed," the other cried passionately, "you would not insult me!"
"Sit down, sir, sit down," Count Hannibal answered sternly. "We will talk of that presently. In the meantime I have something to say to you. Will you not eat?"
But Tignonville would not.
"Very well," Count Hannibal answered; and he went on with his supper, "I am indifferent whether you eat or not. It is enough for me that you are one of the two things I lacked an hour ago; and that I have you, M. de Tignonville. And through you I look to obtain the other."
"What other?" Tignonville cried.
"A minister," Tavannes answered, smiling. "A minister. There are not many left in Paris--of your faith. But you met one this morning, I know!"
"I? I met one?"
"Yes, monsieur, you! And can lay your hand on him in five minutes, you know."
M. de Tignonville gasped. His face turned a shade paler. "You have a spy," he cried. "You have a spy upstairs!"
Tavannes raised his cup to his lips, and drank. When he had set it down, "It may be," he said, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, it boots not how I know. It is my business to make the most of my knowledge--and of yours!"
M. de Tignonville laughed rudely. "Make the most of your own," he said; "you will have none of mine."
"That remains to be seen," Count Hannibal answered. "Carry your mind back two days, M. de Tignonville. Had I gone to Mademoiselle de Vrillac last Saturday and said to her 'Marry me, or promise to marry me,' what answer would she have given?"
"She would have called you an insolent!" the young man replied hotly. "And I----"
"No matter what you would have done!" Tavannes said. "Suffice it that she would have answered as you suggest. Yet to-day she has given me her promise."
"Yes," the young man retorted, "in circumstances in which no man of honour----"
"Let us say in peculiar circumstances."
"Well?"
"Which still exist! Mark me, M. de Tignonville," Count Hannibal continued, leaning forward and eyeing the young man with meaning, "which still exist! And may have the same effect on another's will as on hers! Listen! Do you hear?" And rising from his seat with a darkening face, he pointed to the partly shuttered window, through which the measured tramp of a body of men came heavily to the ear. "Do you hear, monsieur? Do you understand? As it was yesterday it is to-day! They killed the President La Place this morning! And they are searching! They are still searching! The river is not yet full, nor the gibbet glutted! I have but to open that window and denounce you, and your life would hang by no stronger thread than the life of a mad dog which they chase through the streets!"
The younger man had risen also. He stood confronting Tavannes, the cowl fallen back from his face, his eyes dilated. "You think to frighten me!" he cried. "You think that I am craven enough to sacrifice her to save myself. You----"
"You were craven enough to draw back yesterday, when you stood at this window and waited for death!" Count Hannibal answered brutally. "You flinched then, and may flinch again!"
"Try me!" Tignonville retorted, trembling with passion. "Try me!" And then, as the other stared at him and made no movement, "But you dare not!" he cried. "You dare not!"
"No?"
"No! For if I die you lose her!" Tignonville replied in a voice of triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you there!" he continued. "You dare not, for my safety is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you may bluster, and shout and point to the window"--and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the other's gesture--"but my safety is more to you than to me! And 'twill end there!"
"You believe that?"
"I know it!"
In two strides Count Hannibal was at the window. He seized a great piece of the boarding which closed one half of the opening; he wrenched it away. A flood of evening light burst in through the aperture, and fell on and heightened the flushed passion of his features, as he turned again to his opponent. "Then if you know it," he cried vehemently, "in God's name act upon it!" And he pointed to the window.
"Act upon it?"
"Ay, act upon it!" Tavannes repeated, with a glance of flame. "The road is open! If you would save your mistress, behold the way! If you would save her from the embrace she abhors, from the eyes under which she trembles, from the hand of a master, there lies the way! And it is not her glove only you will save, but herself, her soul, her body! So," he continued with a certain wildness and in a tone wherein contempt and bitterness were mingled, "to the lions, brave lover! Will you your life for her honour? Will you death that she may live a maid? Will you your head to save her finger? Then, leap down! leap down! The lists are open, the sand is strewed! Out of your own mouth I have it that if you perish she is saved! Then out, monsieur! Cry 'I am a Huguenot!' And God's will be done!"
Tignonville was livid. "Rather, your will!" he panted. "Your will, you devil! Nevertheless----"
"You will go! Ha! ha! You will go!"
For an instant it seemed that he would go. Stung by the challenge, wrought on by the contempt in which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of hate at the tempter; he caught his breath, and laid his hand on the edge of the shuttering as if he would leap out.
But it goes hard with him who has once turned back from the foe. The evening light, glancing cold on the burnished pike-points of a group of archers who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his heart. Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of shouting thousands, but in this darkening street, with an enemy laughing from the window, death with no revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she would be safe, such a death could be compassed only by pure love--the love of a child for a parent, of a parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the world!
He recoiled. "You would not spare her!" he cried, his face damp with sweat--for he knew now that he would not go. "You want to be rid of me! You would fool me, and then----"
"Out of your own mouth you are convict!" Count Hannibal retorted gravely. "It was you who said it! But still I swear it! Shall I swear it to you?"
But Tignonville recoiled another step and was silent.
"No? O preux chevalier, O gallant knight! I knew it! Do you think that I did not know with whom I had to deal?" And Count Hannibal burst into harsh laughter, turning his back on the other, as if he no longer counted. "You will neither die with her nor for her! You were better in her petticoats and she in your breeches! Or no, you are best as you are, good father! Take my advice, M. de Tignonville, have done with arms; and with a string of beads, and soft words, and talk of Holy Mother Church, you will fool the women as surely as the best of them! They are not all like my cousin, a flouting, gibing, jeering woman--you had poor fortune there, I fear?"
"If I had a sword!" Tignonville hissed, his face livid with rage. "You call me coward, because I will not die to please you. But give me a sword, and I will show you if I am a coward!"
Tavannes stood still. "You are there, are you?" he said in an altered tone. "I----"
"Give me a sword," Tignonville repeated, holding out his open trembling hands. "A sword! A sword! 'Tis easy taunting an unarmed man, but----"
"You wish to fight?"
"I ask no more! No more! Give me a sword," he urged, his voice quivering with eagerness. "It is you who are the coward!"
Count Hannibal stared at him. "And what am I to get by fighting you?" he reasoned slowly. "You are in my power. I can do with you as I please. I can call from this window and denounce you, or I can summon my men----"
"Coward! Coward!"
"Ay? Well, I will tell you what I will do," with a subtle smile. "I will give you a sword, M. de Tignonville, and I will meet you foot to foot here, in this room, on a condition."
"What is it? What is it?" the young man cried with incredible eagerness. "Name your condition!"
"That if I get the better of you, you find me a minister."
"I find you a----"
"A minister. Yes, that is it. Or tell me where I can find one."
The young man recoiled. "Never!" he said.
"You know where to find one."
"Never! Never!"
"You can lay your hand on one in five minutes, you know."
"I will not."
"Then I shall not fight you!" Count Hannibal answered coolly; and he turned from him, and back again. "You will pardon me if I say, M. de Tignonville, that you are in as many minds about fighting as about dying! I do not think that you would have made your fortune at Court. Moreover, there is a thing which I fancy you have not considered. If we fight you may kill me, in which case the condition will not help me much. Or I--which is more likely--" he added with a harsh smile, "may kill you, and again I am no better placed."
The young man's, pallid features betrayed the conflict in his breast. To do him justice, his hand itched for the sword-hilt--he was brave enough for that; he hated, and only so could he avenge himself. But the penalty if he had the worse! And yet what of it? He was in hell now, in a hell of humiliation, shame, defeat, tormented by this fiend! 'Twas only to risk a lower hell.
At last, "I will do it!" he cried hoarsely. "Give me a sword and look to yourself."
"You promise?"
"Yes, yes, I promise!"
"Good," Count Hannibal answered suavely; "but we cannot fight so, we must have more light," and striding to the door he opened it, and calling the Norman bade him move the table and bring caudles--a dozen candles; for in the narrow streets the light was waning, and in the half-shuttered room it was growing dusk. Tignonville, listening with a throbbing brain, wondered that the attendant expressed no surprise and said no word--until Tavannes added to his orders one for a pair of swords.
Then, "Monsieur's sword is here," Bigot answered in his half-intelligible patois. "He left it here yester morning."
"You are a good fellow, Bigot," Tavannes answered, with a gaiety and good-humour which astonished Tignonville. "And one of these days you shall marry Suzanne."
The Norman smiled sourly and went in search of the weapon.
"You have a poniard?" Count Hannibal continued in the same tone of unusual good temper, which had already struck Tignonville. "Excellent! Will you strip, then, or--as we are? Very good, monsieur; in the unlikely event of fortune declaring for you, you will be in a better condition to take care of yourself. A man running through the streets in his shirt is exposed to inconveniences!" And he laughed gaily.
While he laughed the other listened; and his rage began to give place to wonder. A man who regarded as a pastime a sword and dagger conflict between four walls, who, having his adversary in his power, was ready to discard the advantage, to descend into the lists, and to risk life for a whim, a fancy--such a man was outside his experience, though in Poitou in those days of war were men reckoned brave. For what, he asked himself as he waited, had Tavannes to gain by fighting? The possession of Mademoiselle? But Mademoiselle, if his passion for her overwhelmed him, was in his power; and if his promise were a barrier--which seemed inconceivable in the light of his reputation--he had only to wait, and to-morrow, or the next day, or the next, a minister would be found, and without risk he could gain that for which he was now risking all.
Tignonville did not know that it was in the other's nature to find pleasure in such utmost ventures. Nevertheless the recklessness to which Tavannes' action bore witness had its effect upon him. By the time the young man's sword arrived something of his passion for the conflict had evaporated; and though the touch of the hilt restored his determination, the locked door, the confined space, and the unaccustomed light went a certain distance towards substituting despair for courage.
The use of the dagger in the duels of that day, however, rendered despair itself formidable. And Tignonville, when he took his place, appeared anything but a mean antagonist. He had removed his robe and cowl, and lithe and active as a cat he stood as it were on springs, throwing his weight now on this foot and now on that, and was continually in motion. The table bearing the candles had been pushed against the window, the boarding of which had been replaced by Bigot before he left the room. Tignonville had this, and consequently the lights, on his dagger hand; and he plumed himself on the advantage, considering his point the more difficult to follow.
Count Hannibal did not seem to notice this, however. "Are you ready?" he asked. And then,
"On guard!" he cried, and he stamped the echo to the word. But, that done, instead of bearing the other down with a headlong rush characteristic of the man--as Tignonville feared--he held off warily, stooping low; and when his slow opening was met by one as cautious, he began to taunt his antagonist.
"Come!" he cried, and feinted half-heartedly. "Come, monsieur, are we going to fight, or play at fighting?"
"Fight yourself, then!" Tignonville answered, his breath quickened by excitement and growing hope. "'Tis not I hold back!" And he lunged, but was put aside.
"Ça! ça!" Tavannes retorted; and he lunged and parried in his turn, but loosely and at a distance. After which the two moved nearer the door, their eyes glittering as they watched one another, their knees bent, the sinews of their backs straining for the leap. Suddenly Tavannes thrust, and leapt away, and as his antagonist thrust in return the Count swept the blade aside with a strong parry, and for a moment seemed to be on the point of falling on Tignonville with the poniard. But Tignonville retired his right foot nimbly, which brought them front to front again. And the younger man laughed.
"Try again, M. le Comte!" he said. And, with the word, he dashed in himself quick as light; for a second the blades ground on one another, the daggers hovered, the two suffused faces glared into one another; then the pair disengaged again. The blood trickled from a scratch on Count Hannibal's neck; half an inch to the right and the point had found his throat. And Tignonville, elated, laughed anew, and swaying from side to side on his hips, watched with growing confidence for a second chance. Lithe as one of the leopards Charles kept at the Louvre, he stooped lower and lower, and more and more with each moment took the attitude of the assailant, watching for an opening; while Count Hannibal, his face dark and his eyes vigilant, stood increasingly on the defence. The light was waning a little, the wicks of the caudles were burning long; but neither noticed it or dared to remove his eyes from the other's. Their laboured breathing found an echo on the farther side of the door, but this again neither observed.
"Well?" Count Hannibal said at last. "Are you coming?"
"When I please," Tignonville answered; and he feinted but drew back. The other did the same, and again they watched one another, their eyes seeming to grow smaller and smaller. Gradually a smile had birth on Tignonville's lips. He thrust! It was parried! He thrust again--parried! Tavannes, grown still more cautious, gave a yard. Tignonville pushed on, but did not allow confidence to master caution. He began, indeed, to taunt his adversary; to flout and jeer him. But it was with a motive.
For suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he repeated the peculiar thrust which had been successful before. This time, however, Tavannes was ready. He put aside the blade with a quick parade, and instead of making a riposte sprang within the other's guard. The two came face to face and breast to shoulder, and struck furiously with their daggers. Count Hannibal was outside his opponent's sword and had the advantage. Tignonville's dagger fell, but glanced off the metalwork of the other's hilt; Tavannes' fell swift and hard between the young man's eyes. The Huguenot flung up his hands and staggered back, falling his length on the floor.
In an instant Count Hannibal was on his breast, and had knocked away his dagger. Then, "You own yourself vanquished?" he cried.
The young man, blinded by the blood which trickled down his face, made a sign with his hands. Count Hannibal rose to his feet again, and stood a moment looking at his foe without speaking. Presently he seemed to be satisfied. He nodded, and going to the table dipped a napkin in water. He brought it, and carefully supporting Tignonville's head, laved his brow. "It is as I thought," he said, when he had stanched the blood. "You are not hurt, man. You are stunned. It is no more than a bruise."
The young man was coming to himself. "But I thought----" he muttered, and broke off to pass his hand over his face. Then he got up slowly, reeling a little, "I thought it was the point," he muttered.
"No, it was the pommel," Tavannes answered drily. "It would not have served me to kill you. I could have done that ten times."
Tignonville groaned, and, sitting down at the table, held the napkin to his aching head. One of the candles had been overturned in the struggle and lay on the floor, flaring in a little pool of grease. Tavannes set his heel upon it; then, striding to the farther end of the room, he picked up Tignonville's dagger and placed it beside his sword on the table. He looked about to see if aught else remained to do, and, finding nothing, he returned to Tignonville's side.
"Now, monsieur," he said in a voice hard and constrained, "I must ask you to perform your part of the bargain."
A groan of anguish broke from the unhappy man. And yet he had set his life on the cast; what more could he have done? "You will not harm him?" he muttered.
"He shall go safe," Count Hannibal replied gravely.
"And----" he fought a moment with his pride, then blurted out the words, "you will not tell her--that it was through me--you found him?"
"I will not," Tavannes answered in the same tone. He stooped and picked up the other's robe and cowl, which had fallen from a chair--so that as he spoke his eyes were averted. "She shall never know through me," he said.
And Tignonville, his face hidden in his hands, told him.