“You will not turn me,” he repeated. “I have offered you my love—a love that burns in me as a consuming fire—and you think to put it aside with indignation and contempt. But there are other emotions fighting for me than love. And fear is one of them.”
“I do not fear your lordship,” flashed Gabrielle, with lofty pride.
“Yet there is none in Morvaix to protect you from me.”
“My cousin Gerard——”
“He has fled the city, like the craven, guilty, worthless wretch he is,” he answered contemptuously.
“It is not true, my lord. He is here in your castle. He came with me, foreseeing more clearly than I the purpose with which you brought me here. He came for my protection. And he is no craven guilty wretch as you say, but a good and true man: the man, my lord, whom I love, and whose wife I shall be, by the grace of God.”
He stood fighting with the tempest of rage which this proud avowal provoked and was still striving for self-restraint, when an interruption occurred. Some one came to the door, and when, with an angry exclamation, he opened it, he found a messenger from de Proballe.
“Your Grace, M. le Baron de Proballe desires me to say that he seeks the favour of an immediate audience with you on matters of the most urgent importance affecting closely M. de Cobalt,” said the man.
“He has not fled, you say?” cried the Duke, turning to Gabrielle, and jumping to the conclusion that that was the news. His manner was full of exultation, and he laughed unpleasantly as he added: “Come and see for yourself.”
Together they went down to where de Proballe was waiting with strange news that had brought him in hot haste to the Castle.