"Listen, Madame. There is one condition upon which I will destroy this paper and keep silence."
She uttered a joyful cry. I knew that what she thought of was not her husband's fate, but the barrier she had mentioned.
"It is that you will escape with me at once," I said.
The joy passed out of her face; but she was silent.
"Consider," I went on. "Not merely your own life, not merely mine, not merely Mathilde's, and the happiness of Hugues: it is in your power to save your husband's life also, and to save his soul from the crime of your murder, if there be any degree between act and intent. Is it not a sin and a folly to refuse? Think of the blood already shed by reason of this matter. Why should there be more?"
At last she wavered. I turned to Mathilde, to speak of the order in which we should descend the ladder.
At that instant I heard the key begin to grate in the lock.
"Some one is coming in!" whispered the Countess in alarm.
Instantly I pushed Mathilde upon the couch beneath the window, in a sitting posture, so that her body would conceal the end of the rope ladder. The next moment I had pulled the other bed a little way out from the wall, and was crouching behind it.
The door opened, and I heard the noise of men entering with heavy tread. Then the door closed. There was a sound of swift movement, then a scream from Mathilde and a terrified cry from the Countess, both voices being suddenly silenced at their height. I raised my head, and saw two powerful men in black masks, one of whom was grasping the Countess by the throat with his left hand while, with his right assisted by his teeth, he was endeavouring to pass a looped cord around her neck. The other man had both hands about the neck of Mathilde, that he might sufficiently overpower her to apply a similar cord.