CHAPTER XXXVI.
HIS KINGDOM.
Count Hannibal could not have said why he did not speak to her atonce. Warned by an instinct vague and ill-understood, he remainedsilent, his eyes riveted on her, until she rose from the floor. Amoment later she met his gaze, and he looked to see her start. Insteadshe stood quiet and thoughtful, regarding him with a kind of sadsolemnity, as if she saw not him only, but the dead; while first onetremor and then a second shook her frame.
At length, "It is over!" she whispered. "Patience, monsieur; have nofear, I will be brave. But I must give a little to him."
"To him!" Count Hannibal muttered, his face extraordinarily pale.
She smiled with an odd passionateness. "Who was my lover!" she cried,her voice a-thrill. "Who will ever be my lover, though I have deniedhim, though I have left him to die! It was just. He who has so triedme knows it was just! He whom I have sacrificed--he knows it too, now!But it is hard to be--just," with a quavering smile. "You who take allmay give him a little, may pardon me a little, may have--patience!"
Count Hannibal uttered a strangled cry, between a moan and a roar. Amoment he beat the coverlid with his hands in impotence. Then he sankback on the bed. "Water!" he muttered. "Water!"
She fetched it hurriedly, and, raising his head on her arm, held it tohis lips. He drank, and lay back again with closed eyes. He lay sostill and so long that she thought that he had fainted; but after apause he spoke. "You have done that?" he whispered, "you have donethat?"
"Yes," she answered, shuddering. "God forgive me! I have done that! Ihad to do that, or----"
"And is it too late--to undo it?"
"It is too late." A sob choked her voice.
Tears--tears incredible, unnatural--welled from under Count Hannibal'sclosed eyelids, and rolled sluggishly down his harsh cheek to the edgeof his beard. "I would have gone," he muttered. "If you had spoken, Iwould have spared you this."
"I know," she answered unsteadily; "the men told me."
"And yet----"
"It was just. And you are my husband," she replied. "More, I am thecaptive of your sword, and as you spared me in your strength, my lord,I spared you in your weakness."
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu, madame!" he cried, "at what a cost!"
And that arrested, that touched her in the depths of her grief and herhorror; even while the gibbet on the causeway, which had burned itselfinto her eyeballs, hung before her. For she knew that it was the costto her he was counting. She knew that for himself he had ever heldlife cheap, that he could have seen Tignonville suffer without aqualm. And the thoughtfulness for her, the value he placed on athing--even on a rival's life--because it was dear to her, touched herhome, moved her as few things could have moved her at that moment. Shesaw it of a piece with all that had gone before, with all that hadpassed between them, since that fatal Sunday in Paris. But she made nosign. More than she had said she would not say; words of love, even ofreconciliation, had no place on her lips while he whom she hadsacrificed awaited his burial.
And meantime the man beside her lay and found it incredible. "It wasjust," she had said. And he knew it; Tignonville's folly--that andthat only had led them into the snare and caused his own capture. Butwhat had justice to do with the things of this world? In hisexperience, the strong hand--that was justice, in France; andpossession--that was law. By the strong hand he had taken her, and bythe strong hand she might have freed herself.
And she had not. There was the incredible thing. She had choseninstead to do justice! It passed belief. Opening his eyes on a silencewhich had lasted some minutes, a silence rendered more solemn by thelapping water without, Tavannes saw her kneeling in the dusk of thechamber, 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. Noscene 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 neverawake.
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, sheflung 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 upand was going to speak, when a scuffling of feet under the gatewayarch, and a confused sound of several voices raised at once, arrestedthe words on her lips. She rose to her feet and listened. Dimly hecould see her face through the dusk. Her eyes were on the door, andshe breathed quickly.
A moment or two passed in this way, and then from the hurly-burly inthe gateway the footsteps of two men--one limped--detached themselvesand came nearer and nearer. They stopped without. A gleam of lightshone under the door, and someone knocked.
She went to the door, and, withdrawing the bar, stepped quickly backto the bedside, where for an instant the light borne by those whoentered blinded her. Then, above the lantern, the faces of La Tribeand Bigot broke upon her, and their shining eyes told her that theybore good news. It was well, for the men seemed tongue-tied. Theminister's fluency was gone; he was very pale, and it was Bigot who inthe end spoke for both. He stepped forward, and, kneeling, kissed hercold hand.
"My lady," he said, "you have gained all, and lost nothing. Blessed beGod!"
"Blessed be God!" the minister wept. And from the passage without camethe sound of laughter and weeping and many voices, with a flutter oflights and flying skirts, and women's feet.
She stared at him wildly, doubtfully, her hand at her throat. "What?"she said, "he is not dead--M. de Tignonville?"
"No, he is alive," La Tribe answered, "he is alive." And he lifted uphis hands as if he gave thanks.
"Alive?" she cried. "Alive! Oh, heaven is merciful! You are sure! Youare sure?"
"Sure, Madame, sure. He was not in their hands. He was dismounted inthe first shock, it seems, and, coming to himself after a time, creptaway and reached St. Gilles, and came hither in a boat. But the enemylearned that he had not entered with us, and of this the priest wovehis snare. Blessed be God, who put it into your heart to escape it!"
The Countess stood motionless and, with closed eyes, pressed her handsto her temples. Once she swayed as if she would fall her length, andBigot sprang forward to support and save her. But she opened her eyesat that, sighed very deeply, and seemed to recover herself.
"You are sure?" she said faintly. "It is no trick?"
"No, madame, it is no trick," La Tribe answered. "M. de Tignonville isalive, and here."
"Here!" She started at the word. The colour fluttered in her cheek."But the keys," she murmured. And she passed her hand across her brow."I thought--that I had them."
"He has not entered," the minister answered, "for that reason. He iswaiting at the postern, where he landed. He came, hoping to be of useto you."
She paused a moment, and when she spoke again her aspect had undergonea 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 hecan go safely to his home it will be well that he do so. Add, if youplease, that Madame de Tavannes thanks him for his offer of aid, butin her husband's house she needs no other protection."
Bigot's eyes sparkled with joy.
The minister hesitated. "No more, madame?" he faltered. He wastender-hearted, and Tignonville was of his people.
"No more," she said gravely, bowing her head. "It is not M. deTignonville I have to thank, but Heaven's mercy, that I do not standhere at this moment unhappy as I entered--a woman accursed, to bepointed at while I live. And the dead"--she pointed solemnly throughthe 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 roughstone window-ledge on which she had laid them when she entered. As thecold iron touched her fingers she shuddered. The contact awoke againthe horror and mis
ery in which she had groped, a lost thing, when shelast felt that chill.
"Take them," she said; and she gave them to Bigot. "Until my lord canleave his couch they will remain in your charge, and you will answerfor all to him. Go, now, take the light; and in half-an-hour sendMadame 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, wherethe Countess knelt in silence beside the bed--knelt, her head bowed onher clasped hands, as she had knelt before, but with a mind howdifferent, with what different thoughts! Count Hannibal could see herhead but dimly, for the light shed upwards by the spume of the seafell only on the rafters. But he knew she was there, and he wouldfain, for his heart was full, have laid his hand on her hair.
And yet he would not. He would not, out of pride. Instead he bit onhis harsh beard, and lay looking upward to the rafters, waiting whatwould come. He who had held her at his will now lay at hers, andwaited. He who had spared her life at a price now took his own a giftat her hands, and bore it.
"_Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes_----"
His mind went back by some chance to those words--the words he hadneither meant nor fulfilled. It passed from them to the marriage andthe blow; to the scene in the meadow beside the river; to the lastride between La Fleche and Angers--the ride during which he had playedwith her fears and hugged himself on the figure he would make on themorrow. The figure! Alas! of all his plans for dazzling her hadcome--_this!_ Angers had defeated him, a priest had worsted him. Inplace of releasing Tignonville after the fashion of Bayard and thePaladins, and in the teeth of snarling thousands, he had come near toreleasing him after another fashion and at his own expense. Instead ofdazzling her by his mastery and winning her by his magnanimity, he layhere, owing her his life, and so weak, so broken, that the tears ofchildhood welled up in his eyes.
Out of the darkness a hand, cool and firm, slid into his, clasped ittightly, drew it to warm lips, carried it to a woman's bosom. "Mylord," she murmured, "I was the captive of your sword, and you sparedme. Him I loved you took and spared him too--not once or twice.Angers, also, and my people you would have saved for my sake. And youthought I could do this! Oh! shame, shame!" But her hand held hisalways.
"You loved him," he muttered.
"Yes, I loved him," she answered slowly and thoughtfully. "I lovedhim." And she fell silent a minute. Then, "And I feared you," sheadded, her voice low. "Oh, how I feared you--and hated you!"
"And now?"
"I do not fear him," she answered, smiling in the darkness. "Nor hatehim. And for you, my lord, I am your wife and must do your bidding,whether I will or no. I have no choice."
He was silent.
"Is that not so?" she asked.
He tried weakly to withdraw his hand.
But she clung to it. "I must bear your blows or your kisses. I must beas you will and do as you will, and go happy or sad, lonely or withyou, as you will! As you will, my lord! For I am your chattel, yourproperty, your own. Have you not told me so?"
"But your heart," he cried fiercely, "is his! Your heart, which youtold me in the meadow could never be mine!"
"I lied," she murmured, laughing tearfully, and her hands hovered overhim. "It has come back! And it is on my lips."
And she leant over and kissed him. And Count Hannibal knew that he hadentered into his kingdom, the sovereignty of a woman's heart.
* * * * *
An hour later there was a stir in the village on the mainland.Lanterns began to flit to and fro. Sulkily men were saddling andpreparing for the road. It was far to Challans, farther to Lege--morethan one day, and many a weary league to Ponts de Ce and the Loire.The men who had ridden gaily southwards on the scent of spoil andrevenge turned their backs on the castle with many a sullen oath andword. They burned a hovel or two, and stripped such as they spared,after the fashion of the day; and it had gone ill with the peasantwoman who fell into their hands. Fortunately, under cover of theprevious night every soul had escaped from the village, some to sea,and the rest to take shelter among the sand dunes; and as the troopersrode up the path from the beach, and through the green valley, wheretheir horses shied from the bodies of the men they had slain, therewas not an eye to see them go.
Or to mark the man who rode last, the man of the white face--scarredon the temple--and the burning eyes, who paused on the brow of thehill, and, before he passed beyond, cursed with quivering lips the foewho had escaped him. The words were lost, as soon as spoken, in themurmur of the sea on the causeway; the sea, fit emblem of the Eternal,which rolled its tide regardless of blessing or cursing, good or illwill, nor spared one jot of ebb or flow because a puny creature hadspoken to the night.
THE END.
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Page 51