"To remain--on this spot, without uttering a sound, until Igive you leave to speak. Ah! but I think you will obey," he added, with that funny dry chuckle of his as Marguerite's whole figure seemed to stiffen, in defiance of this order, "for let me tell you that if you scream, nay! if you utter one sound, or attempt to move from here, my men--there are thirty of them about--will seize St. Just, de Tournay, and their two friends, and shoot them here--by my orders--before your eyes."Marguerite had listened to her implacable enemy's speech with ever-increasing terror. Numbed with physical pain, she yet had sufficient mental vitality in her to realize the full horror of this terrible "either--or" he was once more putting before her;"either--or" ten thousand times more appalling and horrible, that the one he had suggested to her that fatal night at the ball.
This time it meant that she should keep still, and allow the husband she worshipped to walk unconsciously to his death, or that she should, by trying to give him a word of warning, which perhaps might even be unavailing, actually give the signal for her own brother's death, and that of three other unsuspecting men.