With these words the cardinal rose, and drawing aside a portière, which hung before a large cabinet sumptuously furnished, he said:
"Come, comtesse, let us persuade Monsieur le Comte du Bouchage to stay with us."
At the very moment, however, when the count drew aside the portière, Henri had observed, half reclining upon the cushions, the page who had with the gentleman entered the gate adjoining the banks of the river, and in this page, before even the prelate had announced her sex, he had recognized a woman.
An indefinable sensation, like a sudden terror, or an overwhelming feeling of dread, seized him, and while the worldly cardinal advanced to take the beautiful page by the hand, Henri du Bouchage darted from the apartment, and so quickly, too, that when Francois returned with the lady, smiling with the hope of winning a heart back again to the world, the room was perfectly empty.
Francois frowned; then, seating himself before a table covered with papers and letters, he hurriedly wrote a few lines.
"May I trouble you to ring, dear countess," he said, "since you have your hand near the bell."
And as the page obeyed, a valet-de-chambre in the confidence of the cardinal appeared.
"Let a courier start on horseback, without a moment's loss of time," said Francois, "and take this letter to Monsieur le Grand-amiral à Chateau-Thierry."