He had stepped from the dais, and stood beside her, but neither by look nor movement did she show that she had heard his words. Her eyes were fixed upon the place where Barbier had staggered back and fallen through the little lane that pressure on either side had formed for him. It had closed up again immediately, but somewhere behind there he lay, perhaps trampled underfoot. It is not to be supposed that the terrible suddenness of his death had not shocked her, but there was a sense of relief that the whole hall was not full of fighting and death. Beyond this her thoughts were unable to focus themselves. Fear had not held Roger Herrick back, but, as yet, she hardly realized what had happened. She neither looked at Herrick standing on the steps of the dais, nor took in the words of Felix, who was standing beside her.
The shouting was still loud in the court-yards, but in the hall there was silence after the coming of Lemasle and his men.
"Your claim must sound strange to many here," said Father Bertrand. "Is it your will that I explain it?"
"Speak, father," said Herrick.
"So you, then, are chief conspirator, old fox?" sneered the Count. "This farce tires me. Have I permission to retire while you prove to these, my lords and loyal men of Vayenne, how false a claim is made by this man?"
"No. Stay," said Herrick.
Felix glanced at the faces of those about him. A single sign would have sufficed to make him their leader in an immediate attack upon their enemies, but no sign was forthcoming. Even those who were his friends, whose hope of future advancement lay with the Count, were afraid to move with those shouts from the court-yard and the square ringing in their ears.
Speaking very deliberately, Father Bertrand recited the history of the last Dukes of Montvilliers, even as he had explained it to Herrick in the Rue St. Romain, showing that although the late Duke, having deposed his predecessor, had ascended the throne by the will of the people, even then there existed one with a prior claim.
"This Roger Herrick was alive then, a child in England, the rightful heir to the Dukedom," said Father Bertrand. "The descent of the late Duke is known to you all, and all that I have said you can verify at your will. Might, and the people's will, set the late Duke upon the throne, and it is in your power to set Count Felix in his place, but not by right of birth while this man Roger Herrick lives."
While the priest had been speaking Christine turned to look at Herrick, but he would not meet her eyes. His glance wandered from face to face in the hall as though he were absorbed in the thought of how far the people were with him. To Christine it seemed that his own ambition possessed him entirely.