Those weapons were Tignonville, taken like a rat in a trap by the rising
of the water; and the knowledge that the Countess had stolen the precious
packet from his pillow. The knowledge--for he had lain and felt her
breath upon his cheek, he had lain and felt her hand beneath his pillow,
he had lain while the impulse to fling his arms about her had been almost
more than he could tame! He had lain and suffered her to go, to pass out
safely as she had passed in. And then he had received his reward in the
knowledge that, if she robbed him, she robbed him not for herself; and
that where it was a question of his life she did not fear to risk her
own.
When he came, indeed, to that point, he trembled. How narrowly had he
been saved from misjudging her! Had he not lain and waited, had he not
possessed himself in patience, he might have thought her in collusion
with the old lover whom he found at her door, and with those who came to
slay him. Either he might have perished unwarned; or escaping that
danger, he might have detected her with Tignonville and lost for all time
the ideal of a noble woman.
He had escaped that peril. More, he had gained the weapons we have
indicated; and the sense of power, in regard to her, almost intoxicated
him. Surely if he wielded those weapons to the best advantage, if he
strained generosity to the uttermost, the citadel of her heart must yield
at last!
He had the defect of his courage and his nature, a tendency to do things
after a flamboyant fashion.
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