“And how dull I am not to have thought of it,” replied Gabrielle. “I feel almost humiliated. Lucette hit me harder than she deemed with her words.”
“She has a sharp tongue. What said she?”
Gabrielle’s colour heightened and she smiled.
“That with you in such peril my wits should have been specially sharp; yet that very peril dulled them.”
“There is no such peril. I have no doubt as to the end. See, we have first the chance that the Governor may not discover our presence here until it is too late for him to force us to yield before my cousin gets up from Cambrai. Next, we have means of resistance for some hour or two at worst. Then we have the means to get from Malincourt should he drive us out. Then again, we have this permit to pass the city gates. And besides, we have yet to see that he will dare to resist me when he knows that I am here in Bourbon’s name. I have no fears of the issue; my distress is that you have had to endure so much.”
“But don’t you know we women like such trials, Gerard, even if our hearts are not so stout to face them as yours? It is for you I fear—yet not fear; I have too much confidence in you. Besides, there is always a last resource.”
“We are very far from any last resource,” he answered cheerily. “But what is the one you have in mind?”
“It is I who am the cause of all, Gerard; and in the last extreme I could avert all ill even from you.”
“We would die here in Malincourt one by one before that sacrifice could even be thought of, Gabrielle,” he answered earnestly. “Do you think there is a man of us Bourbons who would purchase his life at such a price?”
“I would let no harm come to you,” she answered, her tone as resolute as his.