"Away with them! Sling them from the parapet--now!"
The men around rushed with a yell at la Coquille and his fellow-prisoners--God pardon those who cause the horrors of war--but my defender, de Rosny, again interposed, and drove them back, despite de Tremblecourt's angry protests, whilst de Clermont stayed his rage with a quiet:
"Be still, Tremblecourt. The King will be here in ten minutes with our other prisoner, and we will deal with Messieurs--in a bunch," and he glanced at me with a meaning in his eyes that I read as an open page.
"Come, madame," said de Rosny, who saw my pallor, "let me take you out of this. I pledge the word of Bethune that no harm will touch you; but that is to happen, I fear, which is not fit for you to see." With these words he took my arm kindly and led me inside, unresisting and as in a dream. In the hall where we stopped I forced myself to regain some courage. It was no time for a faint heart.
"Monsieur! What does this all mean? What is to happen to de Lorgnac? Tell me--I am his wife, monsieur."
He bowed gravely yet sadly. "The King of Navarre is generous, madame. Henri will be here soon, and all may yet be well. In the meantime rest you here, and compose yourself--you are safe from harm."
With this, he, who was in after years to be the first man in France, left me almost stunned and broken by what I had heard. Now that I was about to lose him--nay, had already lost him, for nothing, I felt sure, would move these pitiless hearts--I realized to the end what de Lorgnac was to me, and with this came the dreadful conviction that it was I, and I alone, who had brought this on my husband. I, a fool in my folly, who did not know my own heart, I who with a word might have stayed and kept him who was all in all to me, had driven him forth with my senseless pride to death. I could do nothing to save him. What could a woman do against these men? And then it was as if the whole horror that was to be pictured itself before my eyes, and a mocking fiend gibed in whispers in my ears, "You, you have done this!" Almost with a cry I sprang from my seat, my hand on my forehead and an unspoken prayer on my lips. I felt that my brain was giving way, and that I must do something to regain myself and think. This was no time for aught but action, and here I was giving way utterly. I might do something--surely my woman's wit could suggest some means of saving my husband? Then what happens to those who are face to face with an awful terror happened to me, and, as once before, I fell on my knees before God's Throne, and prayed in a mortal agony. "God help me in my distress!" I called out aloud, and a quiet voice answered:
"Perhaps He has sent the help, Denise."
I sprang up with a start, a wild hope rushing through my heart, and saw Raoul de Clermont before me, with the sneering hardness out of his face and all the old soft light in his eyes. If it was so--if he but bore me the glad tidings his words hinted at--I could forgive him all, and be his friend forever.
"Say that again, monsieur," I gasped; "say it again and I will bless you to my last breath." And as I spoke the heavy folds of the curtain that covered the doorway moved as if stirred by a wind.