"And I also," Sylvia said, since [illegible] ...tion had ceased by now to be c [illegible] ... tones and could easily be overheard in the guardroom.
"You, Mademoiselle!" De Violaine exclaimed, not knowing but that Sylvia was, in absolute truth, that which she was supposed to be, namely the dame de compagnie of Madame de Valorme. "You? Surely Madame la Comtesse does not require your support at such a scene."
"That," Sylvia said, as she stood tall and erect before the Governor, so that he no longer deemed he was speaking to any other than a woman who was herself of equal rank and position with the Comtesse, "that is not the question. It was to enable me, to assist me to leave Liége, to protect me as I did so, that your prisoner made his way to this city--for this that the base, crawling creature, Francbois, denounced him to you."
"You are then Mademoiselle Thorne?"
"I am Mademoiselle Thorne. If Francbois has much to tell you about Monsieur Bracton, since that is his rightful name, so too have I," and as Sylvia spoke her eyes were turned for a moment towards Bevill--for a moment only, but it was enough. Enough to tell Bevill that, even though he should be condemned to-night and executed at dawn, it mattered little now. That glance had told him more than a hundred words could do: it had told him he was the possessor of Sylvia's love!
* * * * * * *
The salle d'armes of the citadel, in which half an hour later De Violaine, the Comtesse, Sylvia, and Bevill stood, was large enough for half a regiment to bivouac in, and had, indeed, in past ages served for such a purpose, as well as many another of blacker memory. For in that great hall, wainscotted with oak from floor to roof, that dark hall in which those who stood at one end of it by night could scarce see to the other, deeds of blood and cruelty had been perpetrated the recollection of which had not by then been effaced. Here prisoners innumerable had heard their doom pronounced; while on other occasions those within the citadel had made many a last stand ere being captured or slain.
To-night this hall was but partly lighted by the wood that flamed in a huge cresset at the further end of it, and by great, common candles that flared from sconces fixed into the walls, while dropping masses of grease to the open floor as they did so.
Yet, sombre as was the light thus obtained, it served well enough for what was now occurring. It served to show De Violaine standing before the enormous empty fireplace that reached to the roof--one in which many persons might sit as in a room and warm themselves on winter nights; to show, also, the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia seated together on a huge oaken bench on which, in earlier days than these, Spanish, Burgundian, French, and Walloon soldiers had lolled as the citadel was held in turn by their various rulers and generals--a bench on which at times trembling prisoners had awaited the pronouncement of their doom. Also, that light showed Bevill standing erect and calm not far from where Sylvia was seated, with, behind him, four troopers of the Régiment de Risbourg, which was quartered partly in the citadel and partly in the Chartreuse, or Carthusian, monastery.
There was, however, one other man present, behind whom there also stood four soldiers. One other--Francbois. Francbois, white as a phantom, yet speaking with an assumption of calm while protesting that that which he was now saying was uttered in the interests of France and justice.