What answer?  Ah, God, what answer?  The men who leant on the parapet, rude and coarse as they were, felt the tragedy of the question and the dilemma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked everywhere save at her.

What answer?  Which of the two was to live?  Which die—­shamefully?  Which?  Which?

“Tell him—­to come back—­an hour before sunset,” she muttered.

They told him and he went; and one by one the men began to go too, and stole from the roof, leaving her standing alone, her face to the shore, her hands resting on the parapet.  The light breeze which blew off the land stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flattened the thin robe against her sunlit figure.  So had she stood a thousand times in old days, in her youth, in her maidenhood.  So in her father’s time had she stood to see her lover come riding along the sands to woo her!  So had she stood to welcome him on the eve of that fatal journey to Paris!  Thence had others watched her go with him.  The men remembered—­remembered all; and one by one they stole shamefacedly away, fearing lest she should speak or turn tragic eyes on them.

True, in their pity for her was no doubt of the end, or thought of the victim who must suffer—­of Tavannes.  They, of Poitou, who had not been with him, knew nothing of him; they cared as little.  He was a northern man, a stranger, a man of the sword, who had seized her—­so they heard—­by the sword.  But they saw that the burden of choice was laid on her; there, in her sight and in theirs, rose the gibbet; and, clowns as they were, they discerned the tragedy of her role, play it as she might, and though her act gave life to her lover.

When all had retired save three or four, she turned and saw these gathered at the head of the stairs in a ring about Carlat, who was addressing them in a low eager voice.  She could not catch a syllable, but a look hard and almost cruel flashed into her eyes as she gazed; and raising her voice she called the steward to her.

“The bridge is up,” she said, her tone hard, “but the gates?  Are they locked?”

“Yes, Madame.”

“The wicket?”

“No, not the wicket.”  And Carlat looked another way.

“Then go, lock it, and bring the keys to me!” she replied.  “Or stay!” Her voice grew harder, her eyes spiteful as a cat’s.  “Stay, and be warned that you play me no tricks!  Do you hear?  Do you understand?  Or old as you are, and long as you have served us, I will have you thrown from this tower, with as little pity as Isabeau flung her gallants to the fishes.  I am still mistress here, never more mistress than this day.  Woe to you if you forget it.”

He blenched and cringed before her, muttering incoherently.

“I know,” she said, “I read you!  And now the keys.  Go, bring them to me!  And if by chance I find the wicket unlocked when I come down, pray, Carlat, pray!  For you will have need of prayers.”