Count Hannibal

But Tignonville would not.

"Very well," Count Hannibal answered; and he went on with his supper. "I

am indifferent whether you eat or not. It is enough for me that you are

one of the two things I lacked an hour ago; and that I have you, M. de

Tignonville. And through you I look to obtain the other."

"What other?" Tignonville cried.

"A minister," Tavannes answered, smiling. "A minister. There are not

many left in Paris--of your faith. But you met one this morning, I

know."

"I? I met one?"

"Yes, Monsieur, you! And can lay your hand on him in five minutes, you

know."

M. de Tignonville gasped. His face turned a shade paler.

"You have a spy," he cried. "You have a spy upstairs!"

Tavannes raised his cup to his lips, and drank. When he had set it down-"It may be," he said, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, it boots

not how I know. It is my business to make the most of my knowledge--and

of yours!"

M. de Tignonville laughed rudely. "Make the most of your own," he said;

"you will have none of mine."

"That remains to be seen," Count Hannibal answered. "Carry your mind

back two days, M. de Tignonville. Had I gone to Mademoiselle de Vrillac

last Saturday and said to her 'Marry me, or promise to marry me,' what

answer would she have given?"

"She would have called you an insolent!" the young man replied hotly.

"And I--"

"No matter what you would have done!" Tavannes said. "Suffice it that

she would have answered as you suggest. Yet to-day she has given me her

promise."

"Yes," the young man retorted, "in circumstances in which no man of

honour--"

"Let us say in peculiar circumstances."

"Well?"

"Which still exist! Mark me, M. de Tignonville," Count Hannibal

continued, leaning forward and eyeing the young man with meaning, "which

still exist! And may have the same effect on another's will as on hers!

Listen! Do you hear?" And rising from his seat with a darkening face,

he pointed to the partly shuttered window, through which the measured

tramp of a body of men came heavily to the ear. "Do you hear, Monsieur?

Do you understand? As it was yesterday it is to-day! They killed the

President La Place this morning! And they are searching! They are still

searching! The river is not yet full, nor the gibbet glutted! I have

but to open that window and denounce you, and your life would hang by no

stronger thread than the life of a mad dog which they chase through the

streets!"

The younger man had risen also. He stood confronting Tavannes, the cowl

fallen back from his face, his eyes dilated.

"You think to frighten me!" he cried. "You think that I am craven enough

to sacrifice her to save myself. You--"