He lifted her hand to his lips—he forgot that he was looking in the face of death. Oh, I could have slain him—could have slain them both! What a fool was I to trust a woman’s word! And what a fool would I yet be should I betray myself!
But I had need for all my self-control. They brought in the priest, and Roquefort, in two words, gained his consent. They hastened after stole and surplice; Claire knelt at the bedside, her hand in his—a great silence fell upon the tent. And then the voice of the priest began the service, shortened somewhat to fit this strange occasion. My heart stood still as he came to the responses—I hoped madly that Claire might yet refuse, but her voice was the stronger of the two.
They pressed forward to kiss the hand of Madame la Duchesse de Roquefort,—mistress of a demesne second only to that of M. le Comte himself,—but I did not stay to witness it. Sick at heart—cursing woman’s baseness—I went blindly forth into the night.
CHAPTER XVII
A TEN YEARS’ VENGEANCE
I opened my eyes to find Fronsac looking down at me. For an instant I thought myself still at the cliff-foot, but a glance told me I was in bed, in a room that, till then, I had never seen.
“You know me!” he cried. “You know me! Tell me, Marsan, you know me!”
“Of course I know you, Fronsac,” I answered petulantly, and stopped, astonished at the effort the words cost me. “I have been ill!” I cried.
“Very ill,” he said, “but you are past danger now, thank God! There, think no more about it—you must sleep.”
He had no need to command me, for my brain seemed so numb it could not think. I remember perhaps a dozen such intervals of dim consciousness. Always there was Fronsac bending over me, and sometimes I fancied there was another in the room, who whisked away at the first sign of my awakening.
A third face too there was. At first I did not know it, but stared stupidly up at it—and then, at last, I recognized Briquet, the surgeon of M. le Duc. For a moment my blood ran cold to see him standing so, for I thought myself again upon the rack. But a second glance dispelled my terror. His face had changed. Stern it still was, but no longer lined by hate, and the eyes were almost gentle. How different from the coals of fire that had glared at Roquefort! I was too weary to seek the clue to the change, which I marvelled at without in the least understanding.