He had not calculated upon Castelroux, nor that the King should already have heard of my detention. Now that Roxalanne came to entreat him to do that which already he saw himself forced to do, he turned his attention to the profit that he might derive from her interestedness on my behalf. I could guess also something of the jealous rage that must fill him at this signal proof of my success with her, and already I anticipated, I think, the bargain that he would drive.
“Tell me, then,” he was repeating, “what is your interest in this gentleman?”
There was a silence. I could imagine her gentle face clouded with the trouble that sprang from devising an' answer to that question; I could picture her innocent eyes cast down, her delicate cheeks pinked by some measure of shame, as at last, in a low, stifled voice, the four words broke from her “I love him, monsieur.”
Ah, Dieu! To hear her confess it so! If yesternight it had stirred me to the very depths of my poor, sinful soul to have her say so much to me, how infinitely more did it not affect me to overhear this frank avowal of it to another! And to think that she was undergoing all this to the end that she might save me!
From Chatellerault there came an impatient snort in answer, and his feet again smote the floor as he resumed the pacing that for a moment he had suspended. Then followed a pause, a long silence, broken only by the Count's restless walking to and fro. At last “Why are you silent, monsieur?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“Helas, mademoiselle, I can do nothing. I had feared that it might be thus with you; and, if I put the question, it was in the hope that I was wrong.”
“But he, monsieur?” she exclaimed in anguish. “What of him?”
“Believe me, mademoiselle, if it lay in my power I would save him were he never so guilty, if only that I might spare you sorrow.”
He spoke with tender regret, foul hypocrite that he was!
“Oh, no, no!” she cried, and her voice was of horror and despair. “You do not mean that—” She stopped short; and then, after a pause, it was the Count who finished the sentence for her.