CHAPTER XXII.
PLAYING WITH FIRE.
The impulse of La Tribe's foot as he landed had driven the boat intothe stream. It drifted slowly downward, and if naught intervened wouldtake the ground on Count Hannibal's side, a hundred and fifty yardsbelow him. He saw this, and walked along the bank, keeping pace withit, while the Countess sat motionless, crouching in the stern of thecraft, her fingers strained about the fatal packet. The slow glide ofthe boat, as almost imperceptibly it approached the low bank; thestillness of the mirror-like surface on which it moved, leaving onlythe faintest ripple behind it; the silence--for under the influence ofemotion Count Hannibal too was mute--all were in tremendous contrastwith the storm which raged in her breast.
Should she--should she even now, with his eyes on her, drop theletters over the side? It needed but a movement. She had only toextend her hand, to relax the tension of her fingers, and the deed wasdone. It needed only that; but the golden sands of opportunity wererunning out--were running out fast. Slowly and more slowly, silentlyand more silently, the boat slid in towards the bank on which hestood, and still she hesitated. The stillness, and the waiting figure,and the watching eyes now but a few feet distant, weighed on her andseemed to paralyse her will. A foot, another foot! A moment and itwould be too late, the last of the sands would have run out. The bowof the boat rustled softly through the rushes; it kissed the bank. Andher hand still held the letters.
"You are not hurt?" he asked curtly.
"No."
"The scoundrel might have drowned you. Was he mad?"
She was silent. He held out his hand, and she gave him the packet. "Iowe you much," he said, a ring of gaiety, almost of triumph, in histone. "More than you guess, Madame. God made you for a soldier's wife,and a mother of soldiers. What? You are not well, I am afraid?"
"If I could sit down a minute," she faltered. She was swaying on herfeet.
He supported her across the belt of meadow which fringed the bank, andmade her recline against a tree. Then as his men began to come up--forthe alarm had reached them--he would have sent two of them in the boatto fetch Madame St. Lo to her. But she would not let him. "Your maid,then?" he said.
"No, monsieur, I need only to be alone a little! Only to be alone,"she repeated, her face averted; and believing this he sent the menaway, and, taking the boat himself, he crossed over, took in MadameSt. Lo and Carlat, and rowed them to the ferry. Here the wildestrumours were current. One held that the Huguenot had gone out of hissenses; another, that he had watched for this opportunity of avenginghis brethren; a third, that his intention had been to carry off theCountess and hold her to ransom. Only Tavannes himself, from hisposition on the farther bank, had seen the packet of letters, and thehand which withheld them; and he said nothing. Nay, when some of themen would have crossed to search for the fugitive, he forbade them, hescarcely knew why, save that it might please her; and when the womenwould have hurried to join her and hear the tale from her lips heforbade them also.
"She wishes to be alone," he said curtly.
"Alone?" Madame St. Lo cried, in a fever of curiosity. "You'll findher dead, or worse! What? Leave a woman alone after such a fright asthat!"
"She wishes it."
Madame laughed cynically; and the laugh brought a tinge of colour tohis brow. "Oh, does she?" she sneered. "Then I understand! Have acare, have a care, or one of these days, monsieur, when you leave heralone, you'll find them together!"
"Be silent!"
"With pleasure," she returned. "Only when it happens don't say thatyou were not warned. You think that she does not hear from him----"
"How can she hear?" The words were wrung from him.
Madame St. Lo's contempt passed all limits. "How can she!" sheretorted. "You trail a woman across France, and let her sit byherself, and lie by herself, and all but drown by herself, and you askhow she hears from her lover? You leave her old servants about her,and you ask how she communicates with him?"
"You know nothing!" he snarled.
"I know this," she retorted. "I saw her sitting this morning, andsmiling and weeping at the same time! Was she thinking of you,monsieur? Or of him? She was looking at the hills through tears; ablue mist hung over them, and I'll wager she saw some one's eyesgazing and some one's hand beckoning out of the blue!"
"Curse you!" he cried, tormented in spite of himself. "You love tomake mischief!"
"No!" she answered swiftly. "For 'twas not I made the match. But goyour way, go your way, monsieur, and see what kind of a welcome you'llget!"
"I will," Count Hannibal growled. And he started along the bank torejoin his wife.
The light in his eyes had died down. Yet would they have been moresombre, and his face more harsh, had he known the mind of the woman towhom he was hastening. The Countess had begged to be left alone;alone, she found the solitude she had craved a cruel gift. She hadsaved the packet. She had fulfilled her trust. But only to experience,the moment it was too late, the full poignancy of remorse. Before theact, while the choice had lain with her, the betrayal of her husbandhad loomed large; now she saw that to treat him as she had treated himwas the true betrayal, and that even for his own sake, and to save himfrom a fearful sin, it had become her to destroy the letters.
Now, it was no longer her duty to him which loomed large, but her dutyto the innocent, to the victims of the massacre which she might havestayed, to the people of her faith whom she had abandoned, to thewomen and children whose death-warrant she had preserved. Now, sheperceived that a part more divine had never fallen to woman, nor aresponsibility so heavy been laid upon woman. Nor guilt more dread!
She writhed in misery, thinking of it. What had she done? She couldhear afar off the sounds of the camp; an occasional outcry, a snatchof laughter. And the cry and the laughter rang in her ears, a bittermockery. This summer camp, to what was it the prelude? Thisforbearance on her husband's part, in what would it end? Were not theone and the other cruel make-believes? Two days, and the men wholaughed beside the water would slay and torture with equal zest. Alittle, and the husband who now chose to be generous would showhimself in his true colours. And it was for the sake of such as thesethat she had played the coward. That she had laid up for herselfendless remorse. That henceforth the cries of the innocent would haunther dreams.
Racked by such thoughts she did not hear his step, and it was hisshadow falling across her feet which first warned her of his presence.She looked up, saw him, and involuntarily recoiled. Then, seeing thechange in his face, "Oh! monsieur," she stammered affrighted, her handpressed to her side, "I ask your pardon! You startled me!"
"So it seems," he answered. And he stood over her regarding her drily.
"I am not quite--myself yet," she murmured. His look told her that herstart had betrayed her feelings.
Alas, the plan of taking a woman by force has drawbacks, and amongothers this one: that he must be a sanguine husband who deems herheart his, and a husband without jealousy, whose suspicions are notaroused by the faintest flush or the lightest word. He knows that sheis his unwillingly, a victim, not a mistress; and behind every bushbeside the road and behind every mask in the crowd be espies a rival.
Moreover, where women are in question, who is always strong? Or whocan say how long he will pursue this plan or that? A man of sternesttemper, Count Hannibal had set out on a path of conduct carefully anddeliberately chosen; knowing--and he still knew--that if he abandonedit he had little to hope, if the less to fear. But the proof offidelity which the Countess had just given him had blown to a whiteheat the smouldering flame in his heart, and Madame St. Lo's gibes,which should have fallen as cold water alike on his hopes and hispassion, had but fed the desire to know the best. For all that, hemight not have spoken now, if he had not caught her look of affright;strange as it sounds, that look, which of all things should havesilenced him and warned him that the time was not yet, stung him outof patience. Suddenly the man in him carried him away.
"For neither!" she said, trembling. His eyes, hot and passionate, wereon her, and the blood had mounted to his brow. "For neither! I do nothate you, monsieur!"
"You fear me then! I am right in that."
"I fear--that which you carry with you," she stammered, speaking onimpulse and scarcely knowing what she said.
He started, and his expression changed. "So?" he exclaimed. "So? Youknow what I carry, do you? And from whom? From whom?" he continued ina tone of menace, "if you please, did you get that knowledge?"
"From M. La Tribe," she muttered. She had not meant to tell him. Whyhad she told him?
He nodded. "I might have known it," he said. "I more than suspectedit. Therefore I should be the more beholden to you for saving theletters. But"--he paused and laughed harshly--"it was out of no lovefor me you saved them. That, too, I know."
She did not answer or protest; and when he had waited a moment in vainexpectation of her protest, a cruel look crept into his eyes."Madame," he said slowly, "do you never reflect that you may push thepart you play too far? That the patience, even of the worst of men,does not endure for ever?"
"I have your word!" she answered.
"And you do not fear?"
"I have your word," she repeated. And now she looked him bravely inthe face, her eyes full of the courage of her race.
The lines of his mouth hardened as he met her look. "And what have Iof yours?" he said in a low voice. "What have I of yours?"
Her face began to burn at that, her eyes fell and she faltered. "Mygratitude," she murmured, with an upward look that craved for pity."God knows, monsieur, you have that!"
"God knows I do not want it!" he answered. And he laughed derisively."Your gratitude!" And he mocked her tone rudely and coarsely. "Yourgratitude?" Then for a minute--for so long a time that she began towonder and to quake--he was silent. At last, "A fig for yourgratitude," he said. "I want your love! I suppose--cold as you are,and a Huguenot--you can love like other women!"
It was the first, the very first time he had used the word to her; andthough it fell from his lips like a threat, though he used it as a manpresents a pistol, she flushed anew from throat to brow. But she didnot quail. "It is not mine to give," she said.
"It is his!"
"Yes, monsieur," she answered, wondering at her courage, at heraudacity, her madness. "It is his."
"And it cannot be mine--at any time?"
She shook her head, trembling.
"Never?" And, suddenly reaching forward, he gripped her wrist in aniron grasp. There was passion in his tone. His eyes burned her.
Whether it was that set her on another track, or pure despair, or thecry in her ears of little children and of helpless women, something ina moment inspired her, flashed in her eyes and altered her voice. Sheraised her head and looked him firmly in the face. "What," she said,"do you mean by love?"
"You!" he answered brutally.
"Then--it may be, monsieur," she returned. "There is a way if youwill."
"Away!"
"If you will!" As she spoke she rose slowly to her feet; for in hissurprise he had released her wrist. He rose with her, and they stoodconfronting one another on the strip of grass between the river andthe poplars.
"If I will?" His form seemed to dilate, his eyes devoured her. "If Iwill?"
"Yes," she replied. "If you will give me the letters that are in yourbelt, the packet which I saved to-day--that I may destroy them--I willbe yours freely and willingly."
He drew a deep breath, still devouring her with his eyes. "You meanit?" he said at last.
"I do." She looked him in the face as she spoke, and her cheeks werewhite, not red. "Only--the letters! Give me the letters."
"And for them you will give me your love?"
Her eyes flickered, and involuntarily she shivered. A faint blush roseand dyed her cheeks. "Only God can give love," she said, her tonelower.
"And yours is given?"
"Yes."
"To another?"
"I have said it."
"It is his. And yet for these letters----"
"For these lives!" she cried proudly.
"You will give yourself?"
"I swear it," she answered, "if you will give them to me! If you willgive them to me," she repeated. And she held out her hands; her face,full of passion, was bright with a strange light. A close observermight have thought her distraught; still excited by the struggle inthe boat, and barely mistress of herself.
But the man whom she tempted, the man who held her price at his belt,after one searching look at her turned from her; perhaps because hecould not trust himself to gaze on her. Count Hannibal walked a dozenpaces from her and returned, and again a dozen paces and returned; andagain a third time, with something fierce and passionate in his gait.At last he stopped before her.
"You have nothing to offer for them," he said, in a cold, hard tone."Nothing that is not mine already, nothing that is not my right,nothing that I cannot take at my will. My word?" he continued, seeingher about to interrupt him. "True, Madame, you have it, you had it.But why need I keep my word to you, who tempt me to break my word tothe King?"
She made a weak gesture with her hands. Her head had sunk on herbreast--she seemed dazed by the shock of his contempt, dazed by hisreception of her offer.
"You saved the letters?" he continued, interpreting her action. "True,but the letters are mine, and that which you offer for them is minealso. You have nothing to offer. For the rest, Madame," he went on,eyeing her cynically, "you surprise me! You, whose modesty and virtueare so great, would corrupt your husband, would sell yourself, woulddishonour the love of which you boast so loudly, the love that onlyGod gives!" He laughed derisively as he quoted her words. "Ay, and,after showing at how low a price you hold yourself, you still look, Idoubt not, to me to respect you, and to keep my word. Madame!" in aterrible voice, "do not play with fire! You saved my letters, it istrue! And for that, for this time, you shall go free, if God will helpme to let you go! But tempt me not! Tempt me not!" he repeated,turning from her and turning back again with a gesture of despair, asif he mistrusted the strength of the restraint which he put uponhimself. "I am no more than other men! Perhaps I am less. And you--youwho prate of love, and know not what love is--could love! could love!"
He stopped on that word as if the word choked him--stopped, strugglingwith his passion. At last, with a half-stifled oath, he flung awayfrom her, halted and hung a moment, then, with a swing of rage, wentoff again violently. His feet as he strode along the river-banktrampled the flowers, and slew the pale water forget-me-not, whichgrew among the grasses.
Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Page 37