linging curses at him until he passed from
their view, behind the angle of the building.

Here for a score of yards a strip of hard foreshore ran between mud and
wall. He struggled along it until he reached the end of the wall; then
with a shuddering glance at the black heaving pit from which he had
escaped, and which yet gurgled above the body of the hapless Maudron--a
tribute to horror which even his fierce nature could not withhold--he
turned and painfully climbed the river-bank. The pike-wound in his
shoulder was slight, but the effort had been supreme; the sweat poured
from his brow, his visage was grey and drawn. Nevertheless, when he had
put fifty paces between himself and the buildings of the Arsenal he
paused, and turned. He saw that the men had run to other windows which
looked that way; and his face lightened and his form dilated with
triumph.

He shook his fist at them. "Ho, fools!" he cried, "you kill not Tavannes
so! Till our next meeting at Montfaucon, fare you well!"

CHAPTER XV. THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE.

As the exertion of power is for the most part pleasing, so the exercise
of that which a woman possesses over a man is especially pleasant. When
in addition a risk of no ordinary kind has been run, and the happy issue
has been barely expected--above all when the momentary gain seems an
augury of final victory--it is impossible that a feeling akin to
exultation should not arise in the mind, however black the horizon, and
however distant the fair haven.

The situation in which Count Hannibal left Mademoiselle de Vrillac will
be remembered. She had prevailed over him; but in return he had bowed
her to the earth, partly by subtle threats, and partly by sheer savagery.
He had left her weeping, with the words "Madame de Tavannes" ringing doom
in her ears, and the dark phantom of his will pointing onward to an
inevitable future. Had she abandoned hope, it would have been natural.

But the girl was of a spirit not long nor easily cowed; and Tavannes had
not left her half an hour before the reflection, that so far the honours
of the day were hers, rose up to console her. In spite of his power and
her impotence, she had imposed her will upon his; she had established an
influence over him, she had discovered a scruple which stayed him, and a
limit beyond which he would not pass. In the result she might escape;
for the conditions which he had accepted with an ill grace might prove
beyon