"Sirrah, you----"
"I can die. And you can no more, my lord!" the minister answered bravely. "You have no threat can move me."
"I am not sure of that," Tavannes answered, more blandly. "But had you listened to me and been less anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where no danger is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics! Mademoiselle is willing, and will tell you so."
"With her own lips?"
Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "With her own lips, if you will," he said. And then, advancing a step and addressing her, with unusual gravity, "Mademoiselle de Vrillac," he said, "you hear what this gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to confirm what I have said?"
She did not answer, and in the intense silence which held the room in its freezing grasp a woman choked, another broke into weeping. The colour ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men fidgeted on their feet.
Count Hannibal looked round, his head high. "There is no call for tears," he said; and whether he spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness was known only to himself. "Mademoiselle is in no hurry--and rightly--to answer a question so momentous. Under the pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word; the more reason that, now the time has come to redeem it, she should do so at leisure and after thought. Since she gave her promise, monsieur, she has had more than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment. But she is a Vrillac, and I know that nothing is farther from her thoughts."
He was silent a moment; and then "Mademoiselle," he said, "I would not hurry you."
Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved.
"I am--willing," she whispered. And a fluttering sigh, of relief, of pity, of God knows what, filled the room.