But quickly now she turned and faced them all, while Gilles still knelt and rested his hot forehead against her cool white hand. Through the gloom they could just discern her face, white and serene and withal defiant and firm, and irradiated with an enormous happiness.
'Messeigneurs,' she said with solemn earnestness, 'you heard, two sennights ago, the profession of faith which I made publicly before the assembled people of Cambray. There I swore by the living God Who made me that I would cherish and serve, loyally and faithfully, even until death, the noble and valorous hero who defended our city in the hour of her gravest peril. That dauntless hero is before you now. Once again he has saved our city from destruction, our sisters from dishonour, our men from shame. To him did I plight my troth, to him alone will I be true!'
Then, as all the men around her remained silent, moved to the depth of their hearts by the sublime note of passion which rang through her avowal, she continued, and this time with a note of unswerving defiance and magnificent challenge in her voice:
'Ask the people of Cambray, Messeigneurs! Let them be the arbiters of my fate and their own. Ask them to whom they would have me turn now—to the mighty Prince who would only use me and them and our valiant race as stepping stones to his own ambition, or to the hero who has offered his life for us all.'
A low murmur went round the assembly. Grave heads were shaken, toil-worn hands were raised to wipe a furtive tear. The evening gloom descended upon this strange scene, upon the reverend seigneurs and the stolid soldiers, upon the man who was kneeling and the woman—a mere girl—who stood there, commanding and defiant, secure in her love, proud of her surrender, ready to fight for her happiness.
'Ask the people of Cambray, Messeigneurs,' she reiterated boldly, 'if you have a doubt!'
She let her eyes wander slowly over the crowd. One by one, she looked these grave seigneurs in the face, these men who arrogated the right to rule over her destiny. They were her friends, had been her daily companions in the past four months of horror and of misery. They had trembled with her over Cambray's danger, had wept with her over Cambray's woes. With her they had acclaimed the hero who had defended them, had wept when they saw him fall; and to-day, again to-day, had been ready to deify him as their hero and her knight.
'Messeigneurs,' she pleaded, 'ask the people of Cambray.'
She knew what would be the people's answer. Now that the hour of their liberty had struck, now that the Spaniard no longer thundered at their gates, they were ready to carry their Liberator shoulder-high and give him the universe in their gratitude, if they had it to give. What cared they if their Liberator was a Duc d'Anjou or a nameless knight? He was the man whom they worshipped, the man who had made them free.
And now, when she still saw doubt, hesitation, embarrassment, upon the face of all these grave dignitaries, she frowned with wounded pride and with impatience.