"No, thousand thunders of hell!" said the King, throwing his arquebuse across the room. "No, the obstinate blockhead—he will not consent!"
Catharine made no reply. She turned her eyes slowly where Henry stood as motionless as one of the figures of the tapestry against which he was leaning. She then gave a glance at the King, which seemed to say:
"Then why he is alive?"
"He is alive, he is alive!" murmured Charles IX., who perfectly understood the glance, and replied to it without hesitation,—"he is alive—because he is my relative."
Catharine smiled.
Henry saw the smile, and realized that his struggle was to be with Catharine.
"Madame," he said to her, "the whole thing comes from you, I see very well, and my brother-in-law Charles is not to blame. You laid the plan for drawing me into a snare. You made your daughter the bait which was to destroy us all. You separated me from my wife that she might not see me killed before her eyes"—
"Yes, but that shall not be!" cried another voice, breathless and impassioned, which Henry instantly recognized and which made Charles start with surprise and Catharine with rage.
"Marguerite!" exclaimed Henry.
"Margot!" said Charles IX.