The hunchback did not seem at all disheartened. "It will go better when I take it in hand myself. Let me speak to the lady alone."

Flora fiercely protested: "No, no, no!"

But Gonzague turned to her with a look so menacing that even her courage quailed before it. "For your friend's sake, be quiet, Mademoiselle de Nevers," he said. Taking Flora by the hand, he drew her, partly by main force and partly by strength of his dominating influence, away from Gabrielle. Then he turned to his friends. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "our good aesop desires to speak to the lady of his love in private.

We are all, I am sure, too sympathetic with his amorous ambition to interfere with his wishes. Let him ply his wooing untroubled. Stand apart, please, and give aesop a fair field."

Wondering, laughing, whispering, Gonzague's guests drew back and ranged themselves against the golden doors, and Gabrielle was left standing alone in the middle of the room. The hunchback caught up a chair and carried it to where she stood, making a gesture which requested her to be seated.

Gabrielle looked at him scornfully. "I have nothing to say to you. I trust to the justice of France."

The hunchback spoke to her in a low voice, so evenly calculated that every syllable of what he said was clear to the girl's ears, though no syllable reached the others: "Do not start; do not show surprise."

Gabrielle had the strength of spirit to control the wonder, the joy, the hope at the sound of the loved voice thus brought her so suddenly; but she trembled, and her strength seemed to fail her. She sank into the chair which the hunchback had offered her. "My G.o.d!" she murmured, and then said no more, but sat with clasped hands and rigid face.

The hunchback spoke again, in the same low, measured tones: "Seem to listen against your will. A sign may betray us both."

"Henri!" Gabrielle murmured.

The hunchback went on: "Seem as if you were enchanted at my words, by my gestures. They are watching us."

Now the hunchback walked slowly in a circle round the chair on which Gabrielle was seated, making as he did so fantastic gestures with his hands over her head--gestures which suggested to the amazed spectators some wizard busy with his horrid incantations.

Taranne nudged Oriol. "She listens."

"She seems pleased," Oriol answered.

Chavernay muttered, angrily: "This must be witch-craft."

Noce, leaning forward a little, called to the hunchback: "How speeds your suit?"

The hunchback paused for a moment in his round to make a motion for silence. "Famously, gentlemen, famously. But you must not disturb my incantations."

Navailles touched Noce on the shoulder. "Let the dog have his day."

The hunchback was again at the side of Gabrielle, still indulging in extravagant antics of gesticulation, speaking softly the while.

"Gabrielle, they think me dead, but I live and hope to save you. But we face danger, dear, but we face death, and must be wary. Will you do whatever I tell you to do?"

"Yes," Gabrielle answered.

The hunchback went on: "G.o.d knows how this night will end. I have told them that I can make you love me."

Almost Gabrielle smiled. "You have told them the truth."

The hunchback continued: "I have told them that I can persuade you to marry me."

Gabrielle said again: "You have told them the truth."

The hunchback sighed. He was still cutting his strange capers, waving his extended fingers over the girl's head and making grotesque genuflections, but he spoke, and his voice was full of pa.s.sion and his voice was full of pain as he whispered: "Gabrielle, Gabrielle, I have always loved you, shall always love you. But you must not love me, that would never do.

Nevers's daughter cannot, may not, love the soldier of fortune."

"Yet you ask me to marry you?" Gabrielle said.

The hunchback answered: "To save you from Gonzague. You would have died to-night but for this mad plan of mine. Once you are safe, you can easily be set free from me."

There was that in Gabrielle's eyes which the hunchback could not see.

There was that in Gabrielle's heart which the hunchback could not read.

Gabrielle appreciated the n.o.bility of the man who was trying to save her, but Gabrielle also understood the strength of her own love and her own determination, but she showed nothing of this in her words. All she said was: "Well, I am not safe yet. What do you want me to do?"

The hunchback instructed her. "Just say yes to the questions I shall ask you now aloud. Speak as if you were in a dream."

He drew back now a little from the girl, and turned triumphantly to the others, with the air of one who has accomplished a very difficult task.

Then he approached Gabrielle again.

"Do you love me?" he asked, in a clear voice which carried to all parts of the room.

And the girl, looking straight before her like one that spoke in a trance, answered, clearly: "I love you with all my heart, for ever and ever and ever."

Gonzague, who had been watching the proceedings with cynical curiosity, was the most amazed of the amazed spectators. "Here is a miracle."

"I'll not believe it," Chavernay protested.

The hunchback made an angry gesture to command silence. "Hush!" he said, and then again addressed the girl: "Will you be my wife?"

Gabrielle answered as clearly as before: "I will be your wife gladly. In joy and in sorrow, I will be your wife so long as I live."

The hunchback turned triumphantly to the company. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, you see that my suit prospers. The poor hunchback was no boaster."

Flora, seated near to Gonzague, and conquered by his domination and by the horror of the scene, covered her face with her hands and shuddered.

"It's too horrible," she moaned.

The hunchback nodded to her ironically. "You are severe," he said, dryly.

Then he turned to Gonzague. "There is a friend of mine at the door," he said. "May I introduce him?"

Gonzague nodded, and the hunchback advanced to the door of the antechamber.

Chavernay looked after him with haggard eyes. "What spell has the devil got?" he muttered.

Gonzague shrugged his shoulders. "I am amazed; but the knave has my faith, and, if the lady's taste limps, shall we say her nay?"

XXVIII

THE SIGNATURE OF aeSOP

By this time the hunchback had opened the door and introduced to the company a dapper, affable gentleman who was habited, as became his calling, for the most part in black; but he lent an air of smartness to his notarial garb by reason that the black of his coat and breeches was of silk, and that he wore a quant.i.ty of costly lace. This was Master Griveau, one of the princ.i.p.al notaries of Paris, and a man that had been employed not a little by the Prince de Gonzague. For this reason his face was familiar to most of those present, and the faces of most of those present were familiar to Master Griveau, and Master Griveau nodded and bowed and smirked and smiled, and showed in a hundred little ways with a hundred little airs and graces that he was quite the man of the world and quite at home in fashionable circles. He was accompanied by two of his clerks, who seemed as anxious to efface themselves as their master was to a.s.sert his personality.