And on that she lost her self-control, and
cried out. For the last man to ascend was La Tribe--La Tribe, from whom
she had parted that morning.
The sound she uttered was low, but it reached the men's ears, and the two
whose backs were towards her turned as if they had been pricked. He who
held the lanthorn raised it, and the five glared at her and she at them.
Then a second cry, louder and more full of surprise, burst from her lips.
The nearest man, he who held the lanthorn high that he might view her,
was Tignonville, was her lover!
"_Mon Dieu_!" she whispered. "What is it? What is it?"
Then, not till then, did he know her. Until then the light of the
lanthorn had revealed only a cloaked and cowled figure, a gloomy phantom
which shook the heart of more than one with superstitious terror. But
they knew her now--two of them; and slowly, as in a dream, Tignonville
came forward.
The mind has its moments of crisis, in which it acts upon instinct rather
than upon reason. The girl never knew why she acted as she did; why she
asked no questions, why she uttered no exclamations, no remonstrances;
why, with a finger on her lips and her eyes on his, she put the packet
into his hands.
He took it from her, too, as mechanically as she gave it--with the hand
which held his bare blade.
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