Or you will see her fall, and fall beside
her! Give her to him, I say--give her to him!"
"My wife?"
"Wife?" she echoed, for, fickle, and at all times swept away by the
emotions of the moment, she was in earnest now. "Is there a tie," and
she pointed after the vanishing procession, "that they cannot unloose?
That they will not unloose? Is there a life which escapes if they doom
it? Did the Admiral escape? Or Rochefoucauld? Or Madame de Luns in old
days? I tell you they go to rouse Angers against you, and I see
beforehand what will happen. She will perish, and you with her. Wife? A
pretty wife, at whose door you took her lover last night."
"And at your door!" he answered quietly, unmoved by the gibe.
But she did not heed. "I warned you of that!" she cried. "And you would
not believe me. I told you he was following. And I warn you of this.
You are between the hammer and the anvil, M. le Comte! If Tignonville
does not murder you in your bed--"
"I hold him in my power."
"Then Holy Church will fall on you and crush you. For me, I have seen
enough and more than enough. I go to Tours by the east road."
He shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said.
She flung away in disgust with him. She could not understand a man who
played fast and loose at such a time.
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