Count Hannibal

So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his escape. It was only

when he knew himself safe, when he heard Madame St. Lo's footstep in the

courtyard and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he knew also

that he was failing for want of food. The room seemed to go round with

him; the window to shift, the light to flicker. And then again, with

equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and perfectly master of

himself. Nay, never had he felt a confidence in himself so overwhelming

or a capacity so complete. The triumph of that which he had done, the

knowledge that of so many he, almost alone, had escaped, filled his brain

with a delicious and intoxicating vanity. When the door opened, and

Madame St. Lo appeared on the threshold, he advanced holding out his

arms. He expected that she would fall into them.

But Madame only backed and curtseyed, a mischievous light in her eyes.

"A thousand thanks, Monsieur!" she said, "but you are more ready than I!"

And she remained by the door.

"I have come to you through all!" he cried, speaking loudly because of a

humming in his ears. "They are lying in the streets! They are dying,

are dead, are hunted, are pursued, are perishing! But I have come

through all to you!"

She curtseyed anew. "So I see, Monsieur!" she answered. "I am

flattered!" But she did not advance, and gradually, light-headed as he

was, he began to see that she looked at him with an odd closeness. And

he took offence.

"I say, Madame, I have come to you!" he repeated. "And you do not seem

pleased!"

She came forward a step and looked at him still more oddly.

"Oh yes," she said. "I am pleased, M. de Tignonville. It is what I

intended. But tell me how you have fared. You are not hurt?"

"Not a hair!" he cried boastfully. And he told her in a dozen windy

sentences of the adventure of the haycart and his narrow escape. He

wound up with a foolish meaningless laugh.

"Then you have not eaten for thirty-six hours?" she said. And when he

did not answer, "I understand," she continued, nodding and speaking as to

a child. And she rang a silver handbell and gave an order.

She addressed the servant in her usual tone, but to Tignonville's ear her

voice seemed to fall to a whisper. Her figure--she was small and fairy-

like--began to sway before him; and then in a moment, as it seemed to

him, she was gone, and he was seated at a table, his trembling fingers

grasping a cup of wine which the elderly servant who had admitted him was

holding to his lips. On the table before him were a spit of partridges

and a cake of white bread. When he had swallowed a second mouthful of

wine--which cleared his eyes as by magic--the man urged him to eat. And

he fell to with an appetite that grew as he ate.