He took it up with trembling hand, and almost died of joy as he looked at the handwriting.
"Courage!" said the note. "I am watching over you."
"Ah! if she is watching," cried La Mole, covering with kisses the paper which had touched a hand so dear, "if she is watching, I am saved."
In order for La Mole to comprehend the note and rely with Coconnas on what the Piedmontese called his invisible bucklers it is necessary for us to conduct the reader to that small house, to that chamber in which the reminders of so many scenes of intoxicating happiness, so many half-evaporated perfumes, so many tender recollections, since become agonizing, were breaking the heart of a woman half reclining on velvet cushions.
"To be a queen, to be strong, young, rich, beautiful, and suffer what I suffer!" cried this woman; "oh! it is impossible!"
Then in her agitation she rose, paced up and down, stopped suddenly, pressed her burning forehead against the ice-cold marble, rose pale, her face covered with tears, wrung her hands, and crying aloud fell back again hopeless into a chair.
Suddenly the tapestry which separated the apartment of the Rue Cloche Percée from that in the Rue Tizon was raised, and the Duchesse de Nevers entered.
"Ah!" exclaimed Marguerite, "is it you? With what impatience I have waited for you! Well! What news?"
"Bad news, my poor friend. Catharine herself is hurrying on the trial, and at present is at Vincennes."
"And Réné?"