"M. Tignonville?"
She nodded.
"He is below."
"Ah!" she said.
They expected to see her break down, perhaps to see her fall. But she only groped blindly for a chair and sat. And for a moment there was silence in the room. It was the Huguenot minister who broke it in a tone formal and solemn.
"Listen, all present!" he said slowly. "The ways of God are past finding out. For two days in the midst of great perils I have been preserved by His hand and fed by His bounty, and I am told that I shall live if, in this matter, I do the will of those who hold me in their power. But be assured--and hearken all," he continued, lowering his voice to a sterner note. "Rather than marry this woman to this man against her will--if indeed in His sight such marriage can be--rather than save my life by such base compliance, I will die not once but ten times! See. I am ready! I will make no defence!" And he opened his arms as if to welcome the stroke. "If there be trickery here, if there has been practising below, where they told me this and that, it shall not avail! Until I hear from Mademoiselle's own lips that she is willing, I will not say over her so much as Yea, yea, or Nay, nay!"
"She is willing!"
La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker. It was Count Hannibal, who had entered a few seconds earlier, and had taken his stand within the door.
"She is willing!" Tavannes repeated quietly. And if, in this moment of the fruition of his schemes, he felt his triumph, he masked it under a face of sombre purpose. "Do you doubt me, man?"
"From her own lips!" the other replied, undaunted--and few could say as much--by that harsh presence. "From no other's!"