"By my power, I bid you. By that which I will make you suffer if you fail me, I command you!" cried Gilles de Retz, bending himself towards her and pressing his fingers against her brow so that the points dented her skin.
The tears sprang from underneath the dark lashes which lay so tremulously upon her white cheek.
"You make me do it! It hurts! I cannot!" she said in the pitiful voice of a child.
"Read—or suffer the shame!" cried Gilles de Retz.
"I will—oh, I will! Be not angry," she answered pleadingly.
And underneath the silk the hands were grasped with a grip like that of a vice upon the golden cross she had borrowed from the little Maid of Galloway.
"Read me that which is written on the paper," said the marshal.
The Lady Sybilla began to speak in a voice so low that Gilles de Retz had to incline his ear very close to her lips to listen.
"Accusation against the great lord and most noble seigneur, Gilles de Laval de Retz, Sire de—"
"That is it—go on after the titles," said the eager voice of the marshal.