But
presently he paused; he returned.
"Very well," he said, looking up with an ill grace. "I will do my office
here, if I cannot come to her. But I hold also a letter from M. de
Tignonville, and that I can deliver to no other hands than hers!" He
held it up as he spoke, a thin scrap of greyish paper, the fly-leaf of a
missal perhaps. "See!" he continued, "and take notice! If she does not
get this, and learns when it is too late that it was offered--"
"The terms," Carlat growled impatiently. "The terms! Come to them!"
"You will have them?" the man answered, nervously passing his tongue over
his lips. "You will not let me see her, or speak to her privately?"
"No."
"Then hear them. His Excellency is informed that one Hannibal de
Tavannes, guilty of the detestable crime of sacrilege and of other gross
crimes, has taken refuge here. He requires that the said Hannibal de
Tavannes be handed to him for punishment, and, this being done before
sunset this evening, he will yield to you free and uninjured the said M.
de Tignonville, and will retire from the lands of Vrillac. But if you
refuse"--the man passed his eye along the line of attentive faces which
fringed the battlement--"he will at sunset hang the said Tignonville on
the gallows raised for Tavannes, and will harry the demesne of Vrillac to
its farthest border!"
There was a long silence on the gate.
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