And the Comte Aymar de Poitiers, Sire de Saint-Vallier, tried to draw his sword, and get a way cleared for him to pass; but he found himself closely surrounded by thirty or forty gentlemen whom it would have been dangerous to wound. Several of these, men of the highest rank, answered him with gibes, as they hauled him out to the cloister.
The ravisher, with the swiftness of lightning, had led the Countess to an open chapel, where he found her a seat on a wooden bench behind a confessional. By the light of the tapers burning before the image of the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated, they looked at each other for a moment in silence, clasping hands, and mutually amazed at their daring. The Countess had not the heart to blame the young man for the audacity to which she owed this first and only instant of happiness.
"Will you fly with me into the adjacent territory?" he asked her eagerly. "I have at hand a pair of English jennets which will carry us thirty leagues without drawing rein."
"Oh," cried she sweetly, "where in the world can you find asylum for a daughter of Louis XI.?"
"To be sure," replied the gentleman, bewildered by this difficulty, which he had overlooked.
"Why, then, did you tear me from my husband?" she asked in some terror.
"Alas!" replied he, "I had not thought of the agitation I should feel on finding myself by your side, on hearing you speak to me. I had conceived of two or three plans, and now that I see you, I feel as if everything were achieved."
"But I am lost," said the Countess.
"We are saved," replied the gentleman, with the blind enthusiasm of love. "Listen to me——"
"It will cost me my life," she went on, letting the tears flow which had gathered in her eyes. "The Count will kill me,—this evening, perhaps. But go to the King, tell him of all the torments his daughter has endured for five years past. He loved me well when I was a child. He was wont to laugh and call me Mary-full-of-grace because I was so ugly. Oh, if he could know to what a man he gave me, he would be in a terrible rage! I have never dared to complain, out of pity for the Count. And, besides, how should my voice reach the King's ears? My confessor even is a spy for Saint-Vallier. I therefore lent myself to this criminal escape, in the hope of enlisting a champion. But—dare I trust——Oh!" she cried, breaking off and turning pale; "here is the page."