The movements of the women had overturned two of the candles; a third had guttered out.  The three which still burned, contending pallidly with the daylight that each moment grew stronger, imparted to the scene the air of a debauch too long sustained.  The disordered board, the wan faces of the servants cowering in their corner, Mademoiselle’s frozen look of misery, all increased the likeness; which a common exhaustion so far strengthened that when Tavannes turned from the window, and, flushed with his triumph, met the others’ eyes, his seemed the only vigour, and he the only man in the company.  True, beneath the exhaustion, beneath the collapse of his victims, there burned passions, hatreds, repulsions, as fierce as the hidden fires of the volcano; but for the time they smouldered ash-choked and inert.

He flung the discharged pistols on the table.  “If yonder raven speak truth,” he said, “I am like to pay dearly for my wife, and have short time to call her wife.  The more need, Mademoiselle, for speed, therefore.  You know the old saying, ‘Short signing, long seisin’?  Shall it be my priest, or your minister?”

M. de Tignonville started forward.  “She promised nothing!” he cried.  And he struck his hand on the table.

Count Hannibal smiled, his lip curling.  “That,” he replied, “is for Mademoiselle to say.”

“But if she says it?  If she says it, Monsieur?  What then?”

Tavannes drew forth a comfit-box, such as it was the fashion of the day to carry, as men of a later time carried a snuff-box.  He slowly chose a prune.

“If she says it?” he answered.  “Then M. de Tignonville has regained his sweetheart.  And M. de Tavannes has lost his bride.”

“You say so?”

“Yes.  But—­”

“But what?”

“But she will not say it,” Tavannes replied coolly.

“Why not?”

“Why not?”

“Yes, Monsieur, why not?” the younger man repeated, trembling.

“Because, M. de Tignonville, it is not true.”

“But she did not speak!” Tignonville retorted, with passion—­the futile passion of the bird which beats its wings against a cage.  “She did not speak.  She could not promise, therefore.”

Tavannes ate the prune slowly, seemed to give a little thought to its flavour, approved it a true Agen plum, and at last spoke.

“It is not for you to say whether she promised,” he returned dryly, “nor for me.  It is for Mademoiselle.”

“You leave it to her?”

“I leave it to her to say whether she promised.”

“Then she must say No!” Tignonville cried in a tone of triumph and relief.  “For she did not speak.  Mademoiselle, listen!” he continued, turning with outstretched hands and appealing to her with passion.  “Do you hear?  Do you understand?  You have but to speak to be free!  You have but to say the word, and Monsieur lets you go!  In God’s name, speak!  Speak then, Clotilde!  Oh!” with a gesture of despair, as she did not answer, but continued to sit stony and hopeless, looking straight before her, her hands picking convulsively at the fringe of her girdle.  “She does not understand!  Fright has stunned her!  Be merciful, Monsieur.  Give her time to recover, to know what she does.  Fright has turned her brain.”