Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/78

66 There was the pinch. No wonder that he cried to her in a voice which roused even the servants from their lethargy of fear.

“Say it!” he cried. “Say it, before it be too late. Say, you did not promise!”

Slowly she turned her face to him. “I cannot,” she whispered; “I cannot. Go,” she continued, a spasm distorting her features. “Go, Monsieur. Leave me. It is over.”

“What?” he exclaimed. “You promised him?”

She bowed her head.

“Then,” the young man cried, in a transport of resentment, “I will be no part of the price. See! There! And there!” He tore the white sleeve wholly from his arm, and, rending it in twain, flung it on the floor and trampled on it. “It shall never be said that I stood by and let you buy my life! I go into the street and I take my chance.” And he turned to the door.

But Tavannes was before him. “No!” he said; “you will stay here, M. de Tignonville!” And he set his back against the door.

The young man looked at him, his face convulsed with passion.

“I shall stay here?” he cried. “And why, Monsieur? What is it to you if I choose to perish?”

“Only this,” Tavannes retorted. “I am answerable to Mademoiselle now, in an hour I shall be answerable to my wife—for your life. Live, then, Monsieur; you have no choice. In a month you will thank me—and her.”

“I am your prisoner?”

“Precisely.”

“And I must stay here—to be tortured?” Tignonville cried.

Count Hannibal’s eyes sparkled. Sudden stormy changes, from indifference to ferocity, from irony to invective, were characteristic of the man.