Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/81

Rh But she hung back, staring at him. “Oh no, no!” she cried.

“Yes, yes! I say!” he responded. “You do not understand. The way is open! We can escape, Clotilde, we can escape!”

“I cannot! I cannot!” she wailed, still resisting him.

“You are afraid?”

“Afraid?” she repeated the word in a tone of wonder. “No, but I cannot. I promised him. I cannot. And, O God!” she continued, in a sudden outburst of grief, as the sense of general loss, of the great common tragedy broke on her and whelmed for the moment her private misery. “Why should we think of ourselves? They are dead, they are dying, who were ours, whom we loved! Why should we think to live? What does it matter how it fares with us? We cannot be happy. Happy?” she continued wildly. “Are any happy now? Or is the world all changed in a night? No, we could not be happy. And at least you will live, Tignonville. I have that to console me.”

“Live!” he responded vehemently. “I live? I would rather die a thousand times. A thousand times rather than live shamed! Than see you sacrificed to that devil! Than go out with a brand on my brow, for every man to point at me! I would rather die a thousand times!”

“And do you think that I would not?” she answered, shivering. “Better, far better die than—than live with him!”

“Then why not die?”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, and a sudden stillness possessed her. “How?” she whispered. “What do you mean?”

“That!” he said. As he spoke, he raised his hand and signed to her to listen. A sullen murmur, distant as yet, but borne to the ear on the fresh morning air, foretold the