It was Solomon had the word; and this time the astonishment was on his side. "What is that you say?" he repeated. "Hang M. de Vlaye?"
"And why for not?" the steward replied doggedly, his face red with passion, his dull intelligence sharpened by his lady's wrongs. "And why for not?"
Solomon was scandalised by the mere mention of it. Hang like any clod or clown a man who had been a constant visitor at his master's house! "Oh, but he--you don't hang such as he!" he retorted. "The Captain of Vlaye? Tut, tut! You are a fool!"
"A fool? Not I! They will hang him!"
"Tut, tut!"
"Wait until he speaks!" Fulbert replied, nodding mysteriously in the direction of the Lieutenant, who, at no great distance from the group, was watching a band of peasants at their drill. "When he speaks 'tis the King speaks. And when the King speaks, it is hang a man must, whoever he be!"
"Tut, tut!"
"Whoever he be!" Fulbert repeated with stolid obstinacy. And then, "It is not for nothing," he added with a menacing gesture, "that a man stops the Countess of Rochechouart on the King's road! No, no!"
Not for nothing? No, and it is not for nothing, the Abbess cried in her heart, that you threaten the man I love with the death of a dog! Dogs yourselves! Dogs!
It was well that the Duke was not looking at her at that moment, for her heaving bosom, her glowing eyes, the rush of colour to her face all betrayed the force of her passion. Hang him? Hang her lover? So that was what they were saying, thinking, planning behind her back, was it! That was the camp talk! That!