The favorite re-sheathed his sword. The Duke of Anjou, now pale with rage, staggered to his lounge and sat down. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, cast a look of implacable hatred upon Cornelia, and after regarding her in silence for a moment, said: "Well, my pretty lass—so you meant to assassinate me!"
"Yes—because you are the worthy son of Catherine De Medici, the worthy brother of Charles IX; because you suborned an assassin to poison Coligny!"
The Duke of Anjou remained unmoved, and remarked with a cruel smile: "You are a resolute girl, resolute in word and deed. I came near learning as much at my cost! What is your name?"
"What! You are the daughter of the mariner who last night almost threw into utter ruins our Bayhead redoubt? You are the daughter of the devilish Huguenot who has just revictualed La Rochelle?"
The Cordelier Fra Hervé had just raised the portiere and was about to step into the oratory, when he heard the young girl declare her name to be Cornelia Mirant. The monk immediately stopped. Half-hidden by the tapestry, he remained on the threshold of the room and listened to the rest of the dialogue between the Huguenot girl and the Prince.
"You must be a girl of honorable habits. How came you to yield so readily to the propositions of the Marquis?"
"In the hope of being able to strike you dead with the dagger that I found in the tent of your officer," boldly answered Cornelia.
"A new Judith, you seem to see in me a modern Holofernes! Everything about you breathes courage, honor, chastity. By God! I am becoming interested in you. You have wished my death—well, I wish that you live. So brave a girl should not die."
"What, monseigneur! Shall this wretch escape punishment!" cried the Marquis of Montbar, while Cornelia thought to herself with a shudder: "I dread the clemency of the son of Catherine De Medici more than I do his ire."