Count Hannibal

It is the wont of the sex to snatch at an ell where an inch is offered,

and to press an advantage in circumstances in which a man, acknowledging

the claims of generosity, scruples to ask for more. The habit, now

ingrained, may have sprung from long dependence on the male, and is one

which a hundred instances, from the time of Judith downwards, prove to be

at its strongest where the need is greatest.

When Mademoiselle de Vrillac came out of the hour-long swoon into which

her lover's defection had cast her, the expectation of the worst was so

strong upon her that she could not at once credit the respite which

Madame Carlat hastened to announce. She could not believe that she still

lay safe, in her own room above stairs; that she was in the care of her

own servants, and that the chamber held no presence more hateful than

that of the good woman who sat weeping beside her.

As was to be expected, she came to herself sighing and shuddering,

trembling with nervous exhaustion. She looked for him, as soon as she

looked for any; and even when she had seen the door locked and double-

locked, she doubted--doubted, and shook and hid herself in the hangings

of the bed. The noise of the riot and rapine which prevailed in the

city, and which reached the ear even in that locked room--and although

the window, of paper, with an upper pane of glass, looked into a

courtyard--was enough to drive the blood from a woman's cheeks. But it

was fear of the house, not of the street, fear from within, not from

without, which impelled the girl into the darkest corner and shook her

wits. She could not believe that even this short respite was hers, until

she had repeatedly heard the fact confirmed at Madame Carlat's mouth.

"You are deceiving me!" she cried more than once. And each time she

started up in fresh terror. "He never said that he would not return

until to-morrow!"

"He did, my lamb, he did!" the old woman answered with tears. "Would I

deceive you?"

"He said he would not return?"

"He said he would not return until to-morrow. You had until to-morrow,

he said."

"And then?"

"He would come and bring the priest with him," Madame Carlat replied

sorrowfully.

"The priest? To-morrow!" Mademoiselle cried. "The priest!" and she

crouched anew with hot eyes behind the hangings of the bed, and,

shivering, hid her face.

But this for a time only. As soon as she had made certain of the

respite, and that she had until the morrow, her courage rose, and with it

the instinct of which mention has been made. Count Hannibal had granted

a respite; short as it was, and no more than the barest humanity

required, to grant one at all was not the act of the mere butcher who

holds the trembling lamb, unresisting, in his hands. It was an act--no

more, again be it said, than humanity required--and yet an act which

bespoke an expectation of some return, of some correlative advantage. It

was not in the part of the mere brigand. Something had been granted.

Something short of the utmost in the captor's power had been exacted. He

had shown that there were things he would not do.