The Abbess Of Vlaye

by Stanley John Weyman

"He is a villain!" the Vicomte cried, touched in his tenderest point.

"Villain or no villain, I will cut his throat!" Joyeuse exclaimed, his rage flaming up anew. "If he touch but a hair of des Ageaux' head--who was wounded striving to save my brother's life at Coutras, as all the world knows--I will never leave him nor forsake him till I have his life!"

"I fear that will not avail the Lieutenant," Roger muttered despondently.

"No. No, it may not," the Vicomte agreed, "but we cannot help that." He, in truth, was able to contemplate the Lieutenant's fate without too much vexation, or any overweening temptation to abandon the Countess. "We cannot help it, and that is all that remains to be said. If he will do this he must do it. And when his own time comes his blood be upon his own head!"

But the girl who shared with Bonne the tragedy of the moment had something to say. Slowly the Countess stood up. Timid she was, but she had the full pride of her race, and shame had been her portion since the discovery of the thing Bonne had done to save her. The smart of the Abbess's fingers still burned her cheek and seared her pride. Here, Heaven-sent, as it seemed, was the opportunity of redressing the wrong which she had done to Bonne and of setting herself right with the woman who had outraged her.

The price which she must pay, the costliness of the sacrifice did not weigh with her at this moment, as it would weigh with her when her blood was cool. To save Bonne's lover stood for something; to assert herself in the eyes of those who had seen her insulted and scorned stood for much.

"No," she said with simple dignity. "There is something more to be said, M. le Vicomte. If it be a question of M. des Ageaux' life, I will go to the Captain of Vlaye."

"You will go?" the Vicomte cried, astounded. "You, mademoiselle?"

"Yes," she replied slowly, and with a little hardening of her childish features. "I will go. Not willingly, God knows! But rather than M. des Ageaux should die, I will go."

They cried out upon her, those most loudly who were least interested in her decision. But the one for whose protest she listened--Roger--was silent. She marked that; for she was a woman, and Roger's timid attentions had not passed unnoticed, nor, it may be, unappreciated. And the Abbess was silent. She, whose heart this latest proof of her lover's infidelity served but to harden, she whose soul revolted from the possibility that the deed which she had done to separate Vlaye from the Countess might cast the girl into his arms, was silent in sheer rage. Into far different arms had she thought to cast the Countess! Now, if this were to be the end of her scheme, the devil had indeed mocked her!