Count Hannibal

"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.

"You are satisfied, M. La Tribe?"

"I do not--"

"Man!" With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hannibal dropped the mask. In

two strides he was at the minister's side, his hand gripped his shoulder;

his face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will you play with

lives?" he hissed. "If you do not value your own, have you no thought of

others? Of these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If she will

save them, will not you?"

"My own I do not value."

"Curse your own!" Tavannes cried in furious scorn. And he shook the

other to and fro. "Who thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will

you give them to the butcher?"

"My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of himself, "if she be

willing--"

"She is willing."

"I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And without

her consent--"

"She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle--"