he had the purchase of
the bar, and by this time he was furious as well as determined. Whether
she would or no, he would save her, he would drag her out. Then, as
consciousness fully returned, she, too, took fire.

"No!" she cried, "I will not!" and she struggled more violently.

"You shall!" he retorted between his teeth. "You shall not perish here."

But she had her hands free, and as he spoke she thrust him from her
passionately, desperately, with all her strength. He had his one foot in
the air at the moment, and in a flash it was done. With a cry of rage he
lost his balance, and, still holding the bar, reeled backwards through
the window; while Mademoiselle, panting and half fainting,
recoiled--recoiled into the arms of Hannibal de Tavannes, who, unseen by
either, had entered the room a long minute before. From the threshold,
and with a smile, all his own, he had watched the contest and the result.

CHAPTER VIII. TWO HENS AND AN EGG.

M. de Tignonville was shaken by the fall, and in the usual course of
things he would have lain where he was, and groaned. But when a man has
once turned his back on death he is apt to fancy it at his shoulder. He
has small stomach for surprises, and is in haste to set as great a
distance as possible between the ugly thing and himself. So it was with
the Huguenot. Shot suddenly into the full publicity of the street, he
knew that at any instant danger might take him by the nape; and he was on
his legs and glancing up and down before the clatter of his fall had
travelled the length of three houses.

The rabble were still a hundred paces away, piled up and pressed about a
house where men were being hunted as men hunt rats. He saw that he was
unnoted, and apprehension gave place to rage. His thoughts turned back
hissing hot to the thing that had happened, and in a paroxysm of shame he
shook his fist at the gaping casement and the sneering face of his rival,
dimly seen in the background. If a look would have killed Tavannes--and
her--it had not been wanting.

For it was not only the man M. de Tignonville hated at this moment; he
hated Mademoiselle also, the unwitting agent of the other's triumph. She
had thrust him from her; she had refused to be guided by him; she had
resisted, thwarted, shamed him. Then let her take the consequences. She
willed to perish: let her perish!

He did not acknowledge even to himself the real cause of offence, the
proof to which