Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/311

Rh “By the love I once had! Say, rather, the love I have, Madame—for I am no woman-weathercock to wed the winner, and hold or not hold, stay or go, as he commands! You, it seems,” he continued with a sneer, “have learned the wife’s lesson well! You would practise on me now, as you practised on me the other night when you stood between him and me! I yielded then, I spared him. And what did I get by it? Bonds and a prison! And what shall I get now? The same! No, Madame,” he continued bitterly, addressing himself as much to the Carlats and the others as to his old mistress. “I do not change! I loved! I love! I was going and I go! If death lay beyond that door”—and he pointed to it—“and life at his will were certain here, I would pass the threshold rather than take my life of him!” And, dragging La Tribe with him, with a passionate gesture he rushed by her, opened the door, and disappeared in the next room.

The Countess took one pace forward, as if she would have followed him, as if she would have tried further persuasion. But as she moved a cry rooted her to the spot. A rush of feet and the babel of many voices filled the passage with a tide of sound, which drew rapidly nearer. The escape was known! Would the fugitives have time to slip out below?

Some one knocked at the door, tried it, pushed and beat on it. But the Countess and all in the room had run to the windows and were looking out.

If the two had not yet made their escape they must be taken. Yet no; as the Countess leaned from the window, first one dusty figure and then a second darted from a door below, and made for the nearest turning, out of the Place Ste.-Croix. Before they gained it, four men, of whom, Badelon, his grey locks flying, was first, dashed out in pursuit, and the street rang with cries of “Stop him! Seize him! Seize him!” Some one—one of the pursuers