“How am I to know, who have never loved?”
“Yes, but he may love you. Some day he will come to your arms for forgiveness and to make amends for the past, asking your pardon for all he has made you suffer: suffering is quickly forgotten, God be thanked! in loving arms, pardon is soon granted to the beloved who gave pain.”
“This misfortune coming—and it would be that for both of us, madam, do you forget the secret which I confided in you, how—before I became the wife of Count Charny—I was mother of a son?”
The Queen took breath.
“You mean you will do nothing to bring Charny back to you?” she asked.
“Nothing; no more in the future than in the past.”
“You will not tell him—will not let him suspect that you love him?”
“No, unless he comes to tell me that he loves me.”
“But, if he should——“
“Oh, madam,” interrupted Andrea.