Gilbert had come in so as to hear the final words and he remained on the threshold, mute and standing.
The Queen tossed the letter to Charny and took a few steps to gain her dressing room when the count barred her passage and grasped her wrist.
"My lord, methinks that you forget I am your Queen," said Marie Antoinette, with clenched teeth and enfevered eye.
"You are an ungrateful woman who slanders her friend, a jealous women who defames another, and that woman the wife of a man who has for three days risked his life a score of times for you—the wife of George Count of Charny. Justice must be rendered in face of her you have calumniated and insulted! Sit down and wait."
"Well, have it so," railed the Queen. "Dr. Gilbert," she pursued, forcing a shallow laugh, "you see what this nobleman desires."
"Dr. Gilbert, you hear what the Queen orders," rebuked Charny with a tone full of courtesy and dignity.
"Oh, madam," said Gilbert, sadly regarding the Queen as he came forward. "My Lord Count," he went on to the gentleman, "I have to tell you of the shame of a man and the glory of a woman. A wretched earthworm fell in love with his lord's daughter, the Lady of Taverney. One day, he found her in a mesmeric trance, and without respect for her youth, beauty and innocence, this villain abused her and thus the maid became a woman, the mother before marriage. Mdlle. Taverney was an angel—Lady Charny is a martyr!"
"I thank Dr. Gilbert," said the count, wiping his brow. "Madam," he proceeded to the Queen, "I was ignorant that Mdlle. Taverney was so unfortunate—that Lady Charny was so worthy of respect; otherwise, believe me, six years would not have elapsed before I fell at her feet and adored her as she deserves."
Bowing to the stupefied Queen, he stalked forth without the baffled one making a move to detain him. But he heard her shriek of pain when the door closed between them. She comprehended that over those portals the hand of the demon of jealousy was writing the dread doom:
"Leave hope behind who enter here."