Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/112

100 “Give it me,” he said.

She let him seize it the while she shrugged her shoulders. “It’s your affair, not mine,” she said. “See it if you like, and keep it if you like. Cousin Hannibal wastes few words.”

That was true, for the paper contained but a dozen or fifteen words, and an initial by way of signature.

“I may need your shaveling to-morrow afternoon. Send him, and Tignonville in safeguard if he come.—H.”

“I can guess what use he has for a priest,” she said. “It is not to confess him, I warrant. It’s long, I fear, since Hannibal told his beads.”

M. de Tignonville swore. “I would I had the confessing of him!” he said between his teeth.

She clapped her hands in glee. “Why should you not?” she cried. “Why should you not? ’Tis time yet, since I am to send to-day and have not sent. Will you be the shaveling to go confess or marry him?” And she laughed recklessly. “Will you, M. de Tignonville? The cowl will mask you as well as another, and pass you through the streets better than a cut sleeve. He will have both his wishes, lover and clerk in one then. And it will be pull monk, pull Hannibal with a vengeance.”

Tignonville gazed at her, and as he gazed courage and hope awoke in his eyes. What if, after all, he could undo the past? What if, after all, he could retrace the false step he had taken, and place himself again where he had been—by her side?

“If you meant it!” he exclaimed, his breath coming fast. “If you only meant what you say, Madame.”

“If?” she answered, opening her eyes. “And why should I not mean it?”

“Because,” he replied slowly, “cowl or no cowl, when I meet your cousin”

“’Twill go hard with him?” she cried, with a mocking