"But you will be in Vlaye's power." "God willing," she replied, her spirit still sustaining her. Was not the Abbess, whom she was beginning to hate, looking at her? Ay, looking at her with such eyes, with such thought, as would have overwhelmed her could she have read them. Bitter indeed, were Odette's reflections at this moment--bitter! She had stained her hands and the end was this. She had stooped to a vile plot, to an act that might have cost her sister her life, and with this for reward. The triumph was her rival's. Before her eyes and by her act this silly chit, with heroics on her lips, was being forced into his arms! And she, Odette, stood powerless to check the issue of her deed, impotent to interfere, unable even to vent the words of hatred that trembled on her lips. For the Duke was listening, and she had still enough prudence, enough self-control, to remember that she must not expose her feelings in his presence. On him depended what remained: the possibility of vengeance, the chances of ambition. She knew that she could not speak without destroying the image of herself which she had wrought so patiently to form. And even when he added his remonstrances to her father's, and hot words imputing immodesty rose to the Abbess's lips--words that must have brought the blood to the Countess's cheeks and might have stung her to the renunciation of her project, she dared not utter them. She swallowed her passion, and showed only a cold mask of surprise. Not that the Duke said much. For after a while, "Well, perhaps it is best," he said. "What if she pass into his power! It is better a woman marry than a man die. We can make the one a widow; whereas to bring the other to life would puzzle the best swordsman in France!" The Vicomte persisted. "But there is no burden laid on the Countess to do this," he said. "And I for one will be no party to it! What? Have it said that I surrendered the Countess of Rochechouart who sought my protection?" "Sir," the girl replied, trembling slightly, "no one surrenders the Countess save the Countess. But that the less may be said to your injury, my own people shall attend me thither, and----" "They will avail you nothing!" the Vicomte replied with a frankness that verged on brutality. "You do not understand, mademoiselle. You are scarcely more than a child, and do not know to what you are going. You have been wont to be safe in your own resources, and now, were a fortnight given you to gather your power, you could perhaps make M. de Vlaye tremble. But you go from here, in three hours you will be there, and then you will be as much in his power, despite your thirty or forty spears, as my daughter was this morning!"