pressed her hands to her temples. Once she swayed as if she would fall her length, and Bigot sprang forward to support and save her. But she opened her eyes at that, sighed very deeply, and seemed to recover herself.
“You are sure?” she said faintly. “It is no trick?”
“No, Madame, it is no trick,” La Tribe answered. “M. de Tignonville is alive, and here.”
“Here!” She started at the word. The colour fluttered in her cheek. “But the keys,” she murmured. And she passed her hand across her brow. “I thought—that I had them.”
“He has not entered,” the minister answered, “for that reason. He is waiting at the postern, where he landed. He came, hoping to be of use to you.”
She paused a moment, and when she spoke again her aspect had undergone a subtle change. Her head was high, a flush had risen to her cheeks, her eyes were bright.
“Then,” she said, addressing La Tribe, “do you, Monsieur, go to him, and pray him in my name to retire to St. Gilles, if he can do so without peril. He has no place here—now; and if he can go safely to his home it will be well that he do so. Add, if you please, that Madame de Tavannes thanks him for his offer of aid, but in her husband’s house she needs no other protection.”
Bigot’s eyes sparkled with joy.
The minister hesitated. “No more, Madame?” he faltered. He was tender-hearted, and Tignonville was of his people.
“No more,” she said gravely, bowing her head. “It is not M. de Tignonville I have to thank, but Heaven’s mercy, that I do not stand here at this moment unhappy as I entered—a woman accursed, to be pointed at while I live. And the dead”—she pointed solemnly through the dark casement to the shore—“the dead lie there.”
