Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/173

Rh yawned at her feet; its naked terrors turned her brain. She had been pushed nearer, and nearer, and nearer; struggle as she might, she was on the verge. A mist rose before her eyes, and though they thought she listened she understood nothing of what was passing. When she came to herself, after the lapse of a minute, Count Hannibal was speaking.

“Permit him another trial,” he was saying in a tone of bland irony. “A short time longer, Mademoiselle! One more assault, father! The weapons of the Church could not be better directed or to a more worthy object; and, successful, shall not fail of due recognition and an earthly reward.”

And while she listened, half fainting, with a humming in her ears, he was gone. The door closed on him, and the three—Mademoiselle’s woman had withdrawn when she opened to him—looked at one another. The girl parted her lips to speak, but she only smiled piteously; and it was M. de Tignonville who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather relief than any other feeling.

“Come, all is not lost yet,” he said briskly. “If I can escape from the house”

“He knows you,” she answered.

“What?”

“He knows you,” Mademoiselle repeated in a tone almost apathetic. “I read it in his eyes. He knew you at once: and knew, too,” she added bitterly, “that he had here under his hand one of the two things he required.”

“Then why did he hide his knowledge?” the young man retorted sharply.

“Why?” she answered. “To induce me to waive the other condition in the hope of saving you. Oh!” she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, “he has the cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match for him, Monsieur. Nor I; nor any of us. And”—with a gesture of despair—