Count Hannibal

She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before

her, seeing nothing.

"I am willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it must be."

He did not answer.

"If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a heavy sigh. And her

chin dropped on her breast. Then, abruptly, suddenly--it was a strange

thing to see--she looked up. A change as complete as the change which

had come over Count Hannibal a minute before came over her. She sprang

to his side; she clutched his arm and devoured his face with her eyes.

"You are not deceiving me?" she cried. "You have Tignonville below?

You--oh, no, no!" And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her

voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have not! You are

deceiving me! He has escaped, and you have lied to me!"

"I?"

"Yes, you have lied to me!" It was the last fierce flicker of hope when

hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw that

floated before the eyes.

He laughed harshly. "You will be my wife in five minutes," he said, "and

you give me the lie? A week, and you will know me better! A month,

and--but we will talk of that another time. For the present," he

continued, turning to La Tribe, "do you, sir, tell her that the gentleman

is below. Perhaps she will believe you. For you know him."

La Tribe looked at her sorrowfully; his heart bled for her. "I have seen

M. de Tignonville," he said. "And M. le Comte says truly. He is in the

same case with ourselves, a prisoner."

"You have seen him?" she wailed.

"I left him in the room below, when I mounted the stairs."

Count Hannibal laughed, the grim mocking laugh which seemed to revel in

the pain it inflicted.

"Will you have him for a witness?" he cried. "There could not be a

better, for he will not forget. Shall I fetch him?"

She bowed her head, shivering. "Spare me that," she said. And she

pressed her hands to her eyes while an uncontrollable shudder passed over

her frame. Then she stepped forward: "I am ready," she whispered. "Do

with me as you will!"

* * * * *

When they had all gone out and closed the door behind them, and the two

whom the minister had joined were left together, Count Hannibal continued

for a time to pace the room, his hands clasped at his back, and his head

sunk somewhat on his chest. His thoughts appeared to run in a new

channel, and one, strange to say, widely diverted from his bride and from

that which he had just done. For he did not look her way, or, for a

time, speak to her. He stood once to snuff a candle, doing it with an

absent face: and once to look, but still absently, and as if he read no

word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink still wet, upon

the table. After each of these interruptions he resumed his steady

pacing to and fro, to and fro, nor did his eye wander once in the

direction of her chair.