Richelieu drew back yet more closely against the door. "No one—is permitted to enter," he said, in a low, dogged voice.
His tone seemed to break the spell under which Deborah had been standing. "I will enter!" she said, moving swiftly towards him.
Du Plessis did not stir.
"Let me pass," she whispered.
"By what right, madame? Have you his Majesty's order?"
"Let me pass!" she repeated, lower than before.
"Why?"
For answer she looked straight into his eyes; but he, though every muscle in his body quivered, steadily held his own. Then she said, rapidly: "I can save her life if only—there is time."
Thereupon, a little more stubbornly, a little more relentlessly, he shrank against the door.
Deborah drew a sharp breath, and suddenly seized both his large white wrists with her own hands. For an instant, by reason of the suddenness of her move, it seemed as though he must yield. With an effort he regained his equilibrium; and then all the strength which desperation might have put into her could not have moved him one inch.