He looked about to see if aught else remained to do, and, finding
nothing, he returned to Tignonville's side.
"Now, Monsieur," he said in a voice hard and constrained, "I must ask you
to perform your part of the bargain."
A groan of anguish broke from the unhappy man. And yet he had set his
life on the cast; what more could he have done?
"You will not harm him?" he muttered.
"He shall go safe," Count Hannibal replied gravely.
"And--" he fought a moment with his pride, then blurted out the words,
"you will not tell her--that it was through me--you found him?"
"I will not," Tavannes answered in the same tone. He stooped and picked
up the other's robe and cowl, which had fallen from a chair--so that as
he spoke his eyes were averted. "She shall never know through me," he
said.
And Tignonville, his face hidden in his hands, told him.
CHAPTER XVIII. ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT.
Little by little--while they fought below--the gloom had thickened, and
night had fallen in the room above. But Mademoiselle would not have
candles brought. Seated in the darkness, on the uppermost step of the
stairs, her hands clasped about her knees, she listened and listened, as
if by that action she could avert misfortune; or as if, by going so far
forward to meet it, she could turn aside the worst.
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