"Is he not a prey which will always be within your grasp?"
"And if he escapes, and takes to flight?" exclaimed Colbert.
"Well, monsieur, it will always remain on record, to the king's eternal honor, that he allowed M. Fouquet to flee; and the more guilty he may have been, the greater will the king's honor and glory appear, when compared with such misery and such shame."
Louis kissed La Valliere's hand, as he knelt before her.
"I am lost!" thought Colbert; then suddenly his face brightened up again. "Oh! no, no, not yet," he said to himself.
And while the king, protected from observation by the thick covert of an enormous lime, pressed La Valliere to his breast, with all the ardor of ineffable affection, Colbert tranquilly looked among the papers in his pocket-book, and drew out of it a paper folded in the form of a letter, slightly yellow, perhaps, but which must have been very precious, since the intendant smiled as he looked at it; he then bent a look, full of hatred, upon the charming group which the young girl and the king formed together—a group which was revealed for a moment, as the light of the approaching torches shone upon it. Louis noticed the light reflected upon La Valliere's white dress. "Leave me, Louise," he said, "for some one is coming."
"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle, some one is coming," cried Colbert, to expedite the young girl's departure.
Louise disappeared rapidly among the trees; and then, as the king, who had been on his knees before the young girl, was rising from his humble posture, Colbert exclaimed, "Ah! Mademoiselle de la Valliere has let something fall."
"What is it?" inquired the king.
"A paper—a letter—something white; look there, sire."