The colour ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men fidgeted on their feet.
Count Hannibal looked round, his head high.

"There is no call for tears," he said; and whether he spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness was known only to himself.

"Mademoiselle is in no hurry--and rightly--to answer a question so momentous.

Under the pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word; the more reason that, now the time has come to redeem it, she should do so at leisure and after thought.

Since she gave her promise, Monsieur, she has had more than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment.