"
"I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And without
her consent--"
"She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle--"
She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before
her, seeing nothing.
"I am willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it must be."
He did not answer.
"If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a heavy sigh. And her
chin dropped on her breast. Then, abruptly, suddenly--it was a strange
thing to see--she looked up. A change as complete as the change which
had come over Count Hannibal a minute before came over her. She sprang
to his side; she clutched his arm and devoured his face with her eyes.
"You are not deceiving me?" she cried. "You have Tignonville below?
You--oh, no, no!" And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her
voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have not! You are
deceiving me! He has escaped, and you have lied to me!"
"I?"
"Yes, you have lied to me!" It was the last fierce flicker of hope when
hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw that
floated before the eyes.
He laughed harshly. "You will be my wife in five minutes," he said, "and
you give me the lie? A week, and you will know me better! A month,
and--but we will talk of that another time.
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