There was a long silence on the gate. Some, their gaze still fixed on him, moved their lips as if they chewed. Others looked aside, met their fellows’ eyes in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him. But no one spoke. At his back the flush of dawn was flooding the east, and spreading and waxing brighter. The air was growing warm; the shore below, from grey, was turning green. In a minute or two the sun, whose glowing marge already peeped above the low hills of France, would top the horizon.
The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneasily. “Well,” he cried, “what answer am I to take?”
Still no one moved.
“I’ve done my part. Will no one give her the letter?” he cried. And he held it up. “Give me my answer, for I am going.”
“Take the letter!” The words came from the rear of the group in a voice that startled all. They turned, as though some one had struck them, and saw the Countess standing beside the hood which covered the stairs. They guessed that she had heard all or nearly all; but the glory of the sunrise, shining full on her at that moment, lent a false warmth to her face, and life to eyes woefully and tragically set. It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not. “Take the letter,” she repeated.
Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet.
“Go down!”
He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in return, and he was preparing to do her bidding when a cry of dismay broke from those who still had their eyes bent downwards. The messenger, waving the letter in a last appeal, had held it too loosely; a light air, as treacherous, as unexpected, had snatched it from his hand, and bore it—even as the Countess, drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet—fifty paces from him. A moment it floated in
