“Ay! do I not speak my will plainly enough? Come, the hour is late, and our King’s business is of more import than the whim of a girl.”
I never moved, never lifted my eyes. I was conscious of nothing, but helpless, impotent anger, of voiceless shame. They might force me to go through the form, but never would they make me the wife of this man. My heart throbbed with rebellion, my mind hardened into revolt. I knew all that occurred, realized the significance of every word and act, yet it was as if they appertained to someone else. I felt the clammy touch of Cassion’s hand on my nerveless fingers, and I must have answered the interrogatories of the priest, for his voice droned on, meaningless to the end. It was only in the silence which followed that I seemed to regain consciousness, and a new grip on my numbed faculties. Indeed I was still groping in the fog, bewildered, 79 inert, when La Barre gave utterance to a coarse laugh.
“Congratulations, Francois,” he cried. “A fair wife, and not so unwilling after all. And now your first kiss.”
The sneer of these words was like a slap in the face, and all the hatred, and indignation I felt seethed to the surface. A heavy paper knife lay on the desk, and I gripped it in my fingers, and stepped back, facing them. The mist seemed to roll away, and I saw their faces, and there must have been that in mine to startle them, for even La Barre gave back a step, and the grin faded from the thin lips of the Commissaire.
“’Tis ended then,” I said, and my voice did not falter. “I am this man’s wife. Very well, you have had your way; now I will have mine. Listen to what I shall say, Monsieur le Governor, and you also, Francois Cassion. By rite of church you call me wife, but that is your only claim. I know your law, and that this ceremony has sealed my lips. I am your captive, nothing more; you can rob me now––but, mark you! all that you will ever get is money. Monsieur Cassion, if you dare lay so much as a finger on me, I will kill you, as I would a snake. I know what I say, and mean it. You kiss me! Try it, Monsieur, if you doubt how my race repays insult. I will go with you; I will bear your name; this the law compels, but I am still mistress 80 of my soul, and of my body. You hear me, Messieurs? You understand?”
Cassion stood leaning forward, just where my first words had held him motionless. As I paused his eyes were on my face, and he lifted a hand to wipe away drops of perspiration. La Barre crumpled the paper he held savagely.
“So,” he exclaimed, “we have unchained a tiger cat. Well, all this is naught to me; and Francois, I leave you and the wilderness to do the taming. In faith, ’tis time already you were off. You agree to accompany the party without resistance, Madame?”
“As well there, as here,” I answered contemptuously.
“And you, Hugo Chevet?”
The giant growled something inarticulate through his beard, not altogether, I thought, to La Barre’s liking, for his face darkened.